Desperate Hedgehogs: Season 1
by Riders
Summary: An action packed/drama filled story about the four main hedgehogs of the series, Sonic, Shadow, Amy, and Silver. Taking place in a different continuity five years after Sonic Adventure 2, only the wildest adventures await these four hedgehogs!
1. A Missing Egg

Hello there, this is RidersDX, and I would like to welcome you to the start of quite the series! Desperate Hedgehogs is a Sonic fanfic that takes place 5 years after the events of Sonic Adventure 2. But here's the twist, the events after Sonic Adventure 2 had been completely ERASED. So that means no loopholes and no crappy stories to get in the way. The four hedgehogs are as follows. Sonic, Shadow, Amy, and Silver. Enjoy **Episode 1: A Missing Egg**!

**Intro**

It's been five long years ever since the Space Colony Ark incident. A time of great crisis it was, but it was also a time of great adventure, which was something that was pretty lacking for five years for the furry animals of planet earth. Some of them enjoyed the peace, while others detested it. One of those who no doubt detested was Dr. Eggman himself, because instead of being in action, he was behind bars for five long years.

He sits in his prison cell in the GUN facility, eating his lunch for day, which was cold foul soup. It was awful, but after five years of drinking it, the doctor actually didn't care that much about it anymore. He was just tired of what his life had come to, tired of how the tables had turned so suddenly and have stayed in such ways for a long time. The doctor drank his soup in silence, drowning in his misery.

"Ugh," he moaned. "I've been in this cell for five years, and nothing ever changes. That blue rat smiles all day, thinking he's really defeated me since it's obviously been five years and I've yet to actually escape."

"Hey," said a male in a cell right across from Eggman's. Eggman looked at who had just called his name, and this was a muscular tough guy who would give you bad feelings the second you laid your eyes on him. Bruises and tattoos everywhere on his body lied. Humongous guy, with humongous arms. He looked like he could cost some major trouble as he looked like the black version of the Hulk.

"Oh, hi Joe," said Eggman. Yes, it's been five years in the cell, of course Eggman is going to make some kind of friends in the prison. Although, Eggman never really liked Joe actually, he was actually quite annoyed by the guy, but he never said anything, as he knew the big guy could kill him in a heartbeat. "Sorry for you having to listen to my sorrows again."

"Aren't you some super genius? There must've been something you hadn't tried yet in this place to escape."

Eggman thought for a moment, and as time passed, his face slowly grew a grin, and then he slowly chuckles at the thoughts he conjured up in his head.

One month later, fliers are stapled around the world, saying this, "MISSING DR. EGGMAN, GUN'S MOST WANTED VILLIAN."

**Sonic**

The Mystic Ruins was definitely the place to go to if a person just wanted peace and quiet to get away from the rest of the world. For the past five years, it's definitely been that place without any chance of that changing. This was where the famous Sonic the Hedgehog would relax, the blue hero that's saved the world so many times before. But because of the lack of adventure for five years, have people simply forgotten about Sonic?

You could say so for most people, but other people still come up to him for his autograph. But Sonic had slowly blended into the rest of the world, always spending all his days just laying down on the grass in the Mystic Ruins wondering when the next piece of action will come. This particular day, he was relaxing as usual, daydreaming about an adventure he thought he would never get. But maybe, he would get one this time, as he's about to receive some interesting news.

"Sonic!" screamed a voice that was too familiar to Sonic. Sonic turned around on his back and saw that it was none other then his former partner in crime, Miles Tails Prower. The two had a great relationship in the past, fighting side by side against Eggman's antics. But lately, the two have grown apart, due to the lack of adventure that was in the world. The two never found a reason to really come together again and just hang out.

"Tails?" said Sonic in a puzzled manner. Sonic sat up and yawned, then faced Tails. "Wow hey, it's been awhile. How have ya been?"

Tails was always happy to see Sonic, but being apart from him for so long, he wasn't as excited to be with him these days. Tails definitely had his own life now. He's now a scientist working for the government to improve the technology of the world. He came a long way from stopping the missile years ago from annihilating Station Square. "It's good to see you again too Sonic," said Tails. "It's been way too long, but I've been doing great working for the government. I've been able to really assist in the advancing of our society! Have you done anything big in the past five years?"

Sonic was a little said to hear that question, because he really had been on a five year vacation, doing absolutely nothing but just long for adventure. "Um, what brings you here Tails?"

Tails was a little ticked because of the way Sonic ignored his question, but Tails hid those feelings, and just answered Sonic's question. "Well Sonic, I have a message from the president, and he says he has a mission for you he thinks you're perfect for."

Sonic jumped immediately at the news, shocked at hearing his wishes finally come true. "W-what? A mission?"

Tails nodded answering to Sonic's question. "Yes Sonic, it's a really important one. Let's heard over to the white house so you can hear all you need to hear about this."

Sonic nodded in agreement, and the two started to head for Station Square. To Sonic, it definitely felt like old times, he and Tails running together towards a new adventure. But little did he know, this adventure would be a little tougher then he had originally thought.

**Amy**

In Station Square, there was a sub-urban area that was calm, yet full of life. Houses were everywhere, just on the side of the city area of Station Square where all the traffic and car horns were seen and heard. It makes one think how such a peaceful area can be next to something that's the exact opposite of it. But it was Station Square, the city with everything you could think of, the sub-urban area really was like its own city though.

There was a small cheerful house in sub-urban Station Square, which was colored mainly brown and yellow. This is a house, that a certain pink hedgehog would visit everyday no matter what. Yes, none other then Amy Rose. She had her own pink colored house in Station Square, which was very close to this brown one, home to one of Amy's newest and most favorite friends.

These five years, Amy had definitely matured in many ways, but also didn't in other ways. Amy was the kind of person that didn't like to lose her youthful energy in favor of a more sophisticated life. She loved her personality the way it was, although, she was self-conscious about her other qualities. One thing that never went away for Amy was definitely her crush on Sonic, which is still as strong as it was before. But she doesn't go around chasing him as much.

Amy walks up to the brown house and knocks on the door. The door opened and at the door was Cream the Rabbit, and her pet chao Cheese. "Come in Amy!" she says. Cream was someone Amy had met a month after the events of the Space Colony Ark. Amy quickly connected with Cream, which eventually leaded to them being as close as sisters. They spent everyday together just talking and playing around. Amy loved having someone she didn't feel inferior to, one she felt she had authority over. Cream's never the type to want authority, so it was fine with her.

"How's my favorite rabbit and pet chao doing today?" asked Amy.

"Good good, are we going to go shopping today like we planned?" asked Cream.

"You betcha!" said Amy.

But before the two took off, Cream noticed the TV was on. She quickly ran to go turn it off before going, but the news was interesting enough to warrant her attention that she told Amy and Cheese to come over and watch the news first. Amy and Cheese followed, and went to Cream eying the television screen.

There was a female news reporter that was speaking. The images were of Dr. Eggman, the mad scientist that almost killed Sonic during their adventures of Space Colony Ark, something Amy would never forget. "It has been recently leaked that the world famous Dr. Eggman has ESCAPED the GUN prison, and is now on the run from the local authorities. It's been rumored that he's been free for weeks now, angering much of the public that have realized they were living not knowing this mad scientist was on the run."

Cream turned the TV off, and then quickly turned to Amy with a worried look on her face. "Oh my, he's actually escaped?" Cream asked in worry. "Now I'm really scared to go out..." Cream waited for a response from Amy, but she didn't get any. Cream looked up and saw that Amy was in deep thought about the whole issue. "Amy?"

Amy began mumbling, saying, "Hmm, Eggman is back...if I do this..." Amy then suddenly gasped, and smiled widely with a great idea in her head. "This is it Cream! This is my one chance to finally get Sonic's attention!"

"Amy..," said Cream. Cream was very aware of Amy's obsession with Sonic, it probably was the one thing Amy always kept hanging on to. Cream always thought Amy's obsession was unhealthy, especially since Sonic never showed her any affection back. Sonic actually showed her lots of disrespect these past five years, like he had with everyone else.

Amy didn't care though, no matter how many times Sonic ignored her, Amy always kept looking for ways to get Sonic's attention. "If we capture Eggman, it will impress Sonic so much that he will really go on a date with me! Oh, I can just imagine it, going out with my favorite hero of all time and living my happily ever after!"

"Amy, how in the world are we ever going to find Eggman?"

"Simple Cream! I know just the person that can help us! Let's go guys!" Amy quickly ran out of the house. Cream and Cheese exchanged annoyed looks, and then quickly followed Amy.

**Sonic**

The white house, a place of complete awe to many people of the world. Only the most important people really got to really explore this place. The place where the leader made all his or her decisions on certain issues. The president had made a special request for the old hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. He sat in his office, ignoring all the paperwork he had on his desk, because he knew that Sonic would be appearing in the room very soon, taking a step on the red carpet.

The door suddenly opened, catching the president's attention. And out came Sonic, who quickly ran over to the president's desk, with Tails following him pretty quickly. Sonic was excited, wondering if the president really had an all important task for him.

"Reporting for duty Mr. President!" said Sonic who definitely sounded like he was ready to get back in the action.

"Ah thank you for bringing Sonic here Tails," said the president.

Tails nodded towards the president accepting the comment. "It wasn't a problem at all Mr. President," said Tails.

"Okay Sonic, have you been watching the news lately?" asked the president.

Sonic shook his head. He wasn't very up to date with all the news of the current world. That was a common result if all you really did was lie around at the Mystic Ruins just daydreaming all your wishes. The president took out a remote, and turned around towards the TV, turning it on with his remote controller.

The TV showed images of Dr. Eggman with a female reporter reporting that Eggman had been missing for weeks from the GUN prison cell. This shocked Sonic and Tails, they both apparently had no idea of this recent piece of news.

"What?" exclaimed Tails. "Eggman's escaped for weeks?"

The president nodded sighing at the same time. "We were hoping we'd catch him in time to not have to make this go public, but it's been a month now and we're still having no such luck finding him, no matter what we try. We're very scared for what he can accomplish in such time. He might've already built a new base and is planning his attack to take over the world. We're getting desperate at this point, we need to catch this mad man now."

The president turned over to the two figures who were just staring at the TV. Eggman hadn't been in their minds very much except when they were remembering the old times of having to stop him. "So Sonic, this is why I had Tails call you here. We need you to help us get Eggman back behind bars. We fear of what he plans after being stuck in that prison for five whole years."

Sonic nodded in agreement with the president. He suddenly spun his body around and gave the president a thumbs up and smirked. "No problem president, I'm sure I'll get this egghead behind bars in no time!"

"Oh Sonic, of course, Tails and Agent Rouge will be helping you on your mission as well," said the president.

This took Tails by surprise, not aware that the president was going to assign him to go with Sonic on the mission. "Uh, Mr. President, do I really have to? Like, I've been really busy in the lab lately..."

Sonic turned to Tails pretty confused by Tails' comment. The Tails he knew would never turn down an adventure with him. "Come on Tails, it'll be just like old times when we were kicking that egghead's butt!"

Tails sighed, it wasn't like he was going to reject the president anyway. "Alright, I guess you can count me in. Rouge is going to join us too president?"

Rouge the Bat was a very shady person, secreting working for GUN when she was collecting chaos emeralds for Doctor Eggman. Despite being a GUN agent, Sonic and Tails never trusted Rouge that much, due to the fact she had just basically been able to work with Eggman so well, collecting basically all the chaos emeralds for him powering that eclipse cannon. Both of them weren't quite sure what Rouge had been up to these past five years.

Sonic still had these thoughts about Rouge, proven when he says, "Rouge is a lil shady president, you sure we can trust her?"

The president laughed at Sonic's worries, knowing that Sonic wasn't usually the type to worry, and also knowing how untrustworthy Rouge can seem. "Rest assured you two, Rouge is definitely on your side. She may seem very shady, but she's definitely on our side."

"Oh, how rude," said a voice that can from a figure in the shadows. It came out from the shadows, revealing herself to be Rouge the Bat, which is the person they had obviously been talking about. "You know, if you knew me a lil better, you would know I would have absolutely no reason to betray you," said Rouge. "Unless of course, the doctor were to offer me some jewels."

"Same old Rouge," said Sonic. Sonic never talked to Rouge much during the Space Colony Ark adventures, but he did with her a little after, hearing her entire story. It left a bad feeling in Sonic's stomach, he really didn't feel comfortable even talking to this person. But the president says she has to help them, so Sonic really didn't have a choice.

Rouge chuckled like she always did. "So, shall we get started?" she asked. Sonic and Tails nodded, and the three of them ran out of the room.

**Silver**

In the forest of the Mystic Ruins lied a lot of beautiful rivers and trees. It was the place for all sorts of wildlife to live at. But apparently, it was also the place for strange portals to appear, as a portal all of a sudden appeared, and out came this white hedgehog who looked absolutely exhausted. He immediately fell to the ground coming out of the portal, landing hard.

"Ugh...must...complete...mission...," he said. He slowly got up, and began walking through the forest.

**Amy**

On another side of the Mystic Ruins, lies a floating island high in the sky. And on this floating island lies a read echidna that has not left the island in the past five years, literally. Of course, this was Knuckles the Echidna. Surprising how he was finally having contact with the outside world, he suddenly went back to his old ways of just isolating himself from the world by staying on the island just guarding the master emerald for eternity. He barely got any visitors.

But this was the day he'd get a visitor at last. But the guests were actually very unexpected. It wasn't the former blue rival, or the annoying bat girl, it was the pink Sonic fanatic and her rabbit friend and chao. Amy Rose had Cream fly her all the way to Angel Island, with Cheese following the two quickly. Knuckles quickly ran over to his guests as the three landed on the ground.

"Amy and Cream?" asked Knuckles. "What brings you two here?"

Cream was breathing heavily. Carrying anyone was quite the chore for her, but she didn't want Amy to know it was hard carrying her, as Amy was very self conscious about her weight. Cream wasn't going to go through another period of constant exercise and dieting with Amy, as she was always dragged through it with her whenever Amy was.

Amy meanwhile, was actually not so tired, actually enjoying her quickly flight over to the island. She said, "Oh just wanted to say hi to my favorite echidna!"

Knuckles looked at Amy in a weird way, pretty shocked and weirded out at Amy's comment. Amy wasn't the kind of person to immediately compliment him. "Um, is something wrong with you Amy?" he asked.

"When was the last time you actually got off this island and had some fun?" Amy had a motive without a doubt, but flattery was a new way to gaining that motive instead of her usual aggressive ways.

Knuckles just kept getting weirded out by Amy's comments. "Um, you can say I've actually never left this island since our time on the Space Colony Ark."

Amy gasped at Knuckles' comment, shocked by the fact he had been on this island for five straight years. "Well then, why don't we get you off this island and have some fun?"

Knuckles looked at Amy annoyed, still very confused on Amy's behavior. "Um Amy, I can't just leave the master emerald, it's my life long duty to guard it and you know that."

Amy smiled at Knuckles already expecting such a comment to come out of his mouth. "VECTOR!" she called.

Suddenly, a green crocodile came running towards the three. It was none other then Vector the Crocodile, who was actually a good friend to Knuckles. He was the leader of the Chaotix Detective Agency. However, they haven't really had much business. "Reporting for duty miss Amy Rose!" said Vector.

"Okay, you'll guard the master emerald until Knuckles comes back Vector, got that?" asked Amy.

Vector nodded. "No problem, you just better pay me!" said Vector. "We can't afford any non paying tasks..."

"Um Vector," said Knuckles. "It's okay, you don't have to guard it, I'm not going any...whoa!"

Amy quickly grabbed Knuckles and then grabbed onto Cream, who started to fly off the island. Cheese quickly followed, leaving Vector the Crocodile alone on Angel Island.

**Silver**

Back in the forest of the Mystic Ruins, this white hedgehog still lurked around. You can say it was pretty unusual to be born into a world by coming out of a portal. Who exactly is this being? And where had he come from? Well, he kept walking and walking, as if he was determined to do something.

"I have to find him," he says. "Who knows what he could be doing at the moment? I just hope I ended up at the right place."

He suddenly stopped, as he saw a small building oddly placed in the middle of the forest. The sign read Chaotix Detective Agency. He found it pretty strange that a detective agency would have a building in the forest, it made people unable to actually know about this place. He turned around after observing the building for so long, and began to walk away. But before he could actually escape...

"A customer?" asked a very energetic young person.

The white hedgehog turned around and saw a small bee that was getting closer and closer to his face, until their noses were literally touching. He had the creepiest smile on the planet. "Um, no, I was just going...," the white hedgehog said.

"Nonsense!" said the bee. "Come on in please!" The bee suddenly dragged the white hedgehog and flew as fast as he could into the building. The white hedgehog unfortunately didn't have enough time to react, and he certainly didn't seem like the kind of person to inflict damage on an innocent bystander.

The room was quite small, there was a desk at the back, and really nothing else. Where did this bee even sleep thought Silver? The bee put Silver on a chair in front of the desk, and then the bee sat on the big chair that was in the desk.

"So, have you come here to get help to solve your problems wonderful customer?" asked the bee.

"Um actually, that's none of your concern so I'll just be going...," said the white hedgehog.

"ESPIO!"

Suddenly the white hedgehog could feel a sort of pressure on his hands, as if they were being grabbed to make sure he couldn't escape. The figure that was doing that suddenly turned visible, yes it was Espio the Chameleon. "Please, let us help you, not only are we the best detective agency around, but we are in DIRE need of business," Espio said. "Now Charmy, you can go ahead and explain some things."

Yep, the bee was Charmy, another member of the Chaotix Detective Agency. He was awfully young to be working for something like that though. "Okay!" said Charmy. "Now, just be sure to know if you want our help you'll have to pay very well for our services as Espio said, we're in dire need of business!"

"Ugh," moaned the hedgehog. "I don't need your help! Don't make me do something I know I'll regret doing please and just let me go!"

Espio sighed, and was about to let the hedgehog go, but Charmy all of a sudden bursted into tears, surprising the hedgehog, but not Espio. Espio was quite used to this last ditch effort to get a customer from Charmy. But it apparently seemed to be working this time.

"PL-PLEASE!" cried Charmy. "WE NEED TO PAY RENT NEXT WEEK, AND WE SPENT ALL OUR MONEY ON DUMB THINGS LIKE FOOD! WE NEED TO BE HELPING SOMEONE! WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"H-hey," said the white hedgehog nervously. The hedgehog obviously didn't have a big ego, and he seemed to feel very bad for making Charmy cry. "D-don't cry, I'm sorry if I made you upset..." But the crying just didn't stop, Charmy just kept bawling on and on, until this hedgehog said, "Okay fine, I'll accept your kind help."

Charmy suddenly stopped crying just like that. "Really? GREATTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

"W-wait, you mean it?" asked Espio who was quite shocked by the answer.

The hedgehog nodded and said, "Yes, I guess a little help won't hurt. By the way, my name's Silver, it's nice to meet you two."

**Sonic**

Meanwhile, in another part of the Mystic Ruins, there was a blue hedgehog, a fox, and bat walking around. Deep in the forest they were looking for something. The bat was named Rouge, who was apparently carrying a device of some sorts that seemed to be leading them somewhere. Sonic and Tails just seemed to be mindlessly following her.

"You two seem awfully quiet," said Rouge. "I would think after five years, we'd all be talking tons."

"Well, I guess you can say not much happened these past five years for me," said Sonic. "Um, where exactly are we going again?"

"We're going to go visit Eggman's old Mystic Ruins base. You know, that place where that Egg Carrier was built."

"I guess that's a good place to start an evil epic plot." Sonic chuckled a bit, just thinking about the excitement Eggman is going to bring him.

Rouge stopped, followed by Sonic and Tails, as they all saw that they had reached the door that led into Eggman's new base. It was a bit rusty, as it hadn't been cleaned in the longest time. Rouge went up to try to open it though, and it opened like it was no problem. The doctor knew how to make lasting technology. "Well boys, looks like we've made it. Ladies first of course!" Rouge quickly walked into the door.

Sonic started walking towards the door, but before he could, he turned around at Tails, who seemed to be deep in thought about something. Ever since their adventure started, Sonic felt this uncomfortable feeling with Tails that he just had to get off his chest.

"Tails, is everything okay?" asked Sonic.

Tails didn't answer for a bit, still deep in his thought. But once he heard Sonic's question, he came out of his deep place in thought and said, "Oh, I'm fine Sonic. Let's get going." Tails then quickly hurried into the door.

Sonic's face had this plain expression, as if all of a sudden he was deep in thought. He wasn't the kind of person to keep people waiting though, so he quickly ran through the door.

**Amy**

Very close to the three people on a mission though, were Amy, Cream, and Knuckles, who decided to take up a mission themselves to find Eggman. Well, at least that's what Amy and Cream knew, Knuckles thought he was being taken out to have some fun.

"Um Amy, why are we at the sight of Eggman's old base?" asked Knuckles.

Amy quickly turned around to Knuckles trying to find a quick answer. She then said, "Um, just wanted to bring back some memories to you was all! Now we're going to go into the base so we can remember even more about our adventures!"

"Amy, isn't this a little dangerous? I mean, I know Eggman's in prison but still, it's Eggman's base."

Cream sighed and then said, "Amy, just tell him why he's really here. I hate lying." Cream was definitely an honest rabbit, which definitely angered Amy, who's schemes usually involved some form of lying.

"Tell me what?" asked Knuckles. Knuckles was now very annoyed, he didn't enjoy being tricked, as he knew he had gotten tricked enough before in the past. "Amy, why am I really here?"

Amy sighed, sounding very annoyed. She then said, "Okay Knuckles, the truth is, Eggman has escaped from GUN's prison cell."

"What? That's impossible!"

Amy nodded. "Yeah, it says he's been out of the prison for a month now. I thought if I could catch Eggman, it would finally get Sonic to notice me! Then we can have that wedding on Emerald Coast, and then we can that true kiss, which I'll be thinking about forever and ever and ever and..."

"So you dragged me out here for a selfish reason instead of taking me out to have some fun?" asked Knuckles sounding very angry. He was definitely not in the mood to hear Amy talk about Sonic, especially when he was mad.

"Well, I thought you could really help us Knuckles," said Amy. "I mean, I'm pretty tough, but it seemed like a good idea to have backup."

"Well, you can forget it! I'm going back to protect the master emerald!" Knuckles then started back for Angel Island, whichever direction that was supposed to be.

"Knuckles wait!" shouted Amy, who quickly began following Knuckles. Cream and Cheese then quickly began following Amy.

**Silver**

In another part of the Mystic Ruins forest, a white hedgehog had just revealed his name to be Silver in front of Espio the Chameleon and Charmy the Bee, both members of the Chaotix Detective Agency. Silver started walking out of the house, with Espio and Charmy following him very shortly. All three got down the small stairs.

"Ok, I guess I'll tell you what I'm trying to do," said Silver. "You see I'm looking for this person named Eggman N..."

"Eggman?" asked Espio. "Eggman is trapped inside the GUN Prison Cell, what are you talking about?"

Charmy's eyes suddenly lit open. He quickly flew to the TV that was beside the house and turned it on. "Espio, Silver, come over to this TV quick! I forgot to show you this before Espio."

Espio and Silver quickly went over to Charmy and had their eyes laid on the TV. There was a female reporter on it, standing next to a sideshow of images of Dr. Eggman. She seemed to be reporting that the mad scientist had gone missing for about a month, the news recently leaking today.

"What, Eggman's escaped?" asked Espio.

Silver thought of how similar Eggman looked like the person he was looking for. Perhaps this is the person he came to this place to search for. Maybe he's changed his appearance so that Silver wouldn't recognize him, but Silver seemed to know this person very well, and Eggman resembled the person very well.

"Yeah, that's the guy I'm looking for," said Silver. "You could say it's kind of my responsibility to take care of him."

"Well I'll be," said Charmy. "I can't believe we're going to be on the hunt for a mad scientist! This sounds totally cool!" Many things amused Charmy, and that apparently included looking for a mad scientist that could take over the world.

"So then, are you working for the government or something then Silver?" asked Espio.

"Um, you could say so," said Silver. Silver did do work for the government in the place that he came from, but what exactly that place is is still unknown to us. The three then start off on their journey, getting further and further away from the detective house.

**Amy**

Knuckles was mad, very mad. It was a long time ago he had gotten this mad. Being stuck on a floating island for who knows how long hadn't gave him any reason to really be mad. But contact with actual people had ignited those feelings yet again, as he glides all the way to Angel Island trying to forget about the whole incident.

Amy felt bad though, very bad, as she had Cream fly her to Angel Island, following Knuckles. Amy could sometimes be a jerk, but she always knew if she did something wrong. "Knuckles, wait!" she yelled.

Knuckles landed on the island and then turned around to Amy. "Go away Amy!" screamed Knuckles. "I'm not helping you okay so just give up!"

Amy, Cream, and Cheese finally landed on the island. Amy quickly went over to Knuckles and said, "No, I'm not here for that. I just wanted to say I'm sorry Knuckles. You were right, I was really doing something for my own selfish reasons when it looked like I was just being a good friend. I'm really sorry about that."

"R-really?" asked Knuckles surprised by the apology. "You really don't seem like the apologizing type Amy."

"Y-yeah, but I feel bad. I won't bother you again Knuckles, don't worry."

"Well, it's no problem Amy. It's about time one of you treated me like I have actual feelings."

Amy thought about Knuckles' words for a second. How Knuckles seemed to feel like he wasn't anything important in this world to people, when his job was actually very important. "Hey Knuckles, why don't you ever get off this island to talk to people?"

Knuckles stood and thought about the question. Then answered, "Well, I figured people weren't really interested in me. I figured that there was no point in it, because all I really have to do is just guard this emerald. Anything else is extra."

"That's not true. You need friends Knuckles, everyone feels alone eventually with no one to talk to. Lucky for you though we came up here today to show you that!"

"Yeah, I guess it does get a little lonely up here. Well, thanks you guys. But I should get back to my purpose." Knuckles turns around and begins to walk to the altar. But then he notices something stange. "! IT'S GONE!"

It was true, the master emerald wasn't at the altar at all. Vector stood in front of the altar with his hands grabbing his head showing worry. He heard the large scream and turned around absolutely mortified that the crew had returned. "Uhhh, hey guys," he said.

"Vector!" shouted Knuckles. "What happened to the master emerald?"

Suddenly, the island began to rumble, as if it were going through this massive earthquake. But there was a very good reason for it. Without the master emerald, the island will fell into the ocean. And that fact still held true, as the island to plummet into the ocean. Everyone on it tried to hold on to something, as the roller coaster kept getting faster and faster. But when it finally hit the water, everyone was under the ocean for a few seconds. The island then rises back up to surface and floats on the water, and every lied on the island, trying to recover from the sudden amounts of water that had entered their body.

**Sonic**

Inside the former base of Eggman in the Mystic Ruins was a lot of darkness, and dust, and rust, and broken robots and machines. It was a pretty sad place, then again, what mad scientist base isn't? Not much was really functioning in here, people wonder why the government hasn't taken down the base yet. Sonic, Tails, and Rouge had to use a flashlight to get through the base.

"Isn't there some generator we can activate to turn on the lights?" asked Tails.

"If you find one fox boy, then yes," said Rouge.

Sonic was still thinking about his friend Tails. How he suddenly felt this disconnection from him that wasn't there before. He wondered what had changed, but he suddenly stopped thinking, when the lights suddenly flickered on. All the lights, not a single light was now off.

"How did ya do that Tails?" asked Rouge.

Tails was quite confused at Rouge's comment, not to mention nervous. "Uh Rouge, I didn't do anything."

"Could Eggman really be in here then?" asked Sonic.

The three didn't waste time and continued exploring the old base. They eventually entered this room that looked like it was actually recently used, it was cleaner then most of the base, and some of the machines actually looked like they were in perfect working condition.

"Eggman has got to have gotten in here!" Sonic concluded. "It looks like it was used recently."

All three of them walked around the room just observing the surroundings trying to get any clues to Eggman's location. Rouge suddenly stopped however, when she noticed this capsule at the back of the room. She looked at what was inside the capsule, that made her gasp like never before. "S-Sonic, T-Tails, get over here!" she said.

Sonic and Tails quickly got to where Rouge was, and looked over at what Rouge was staring at. They both suddenly gasped at their sight too. All three of them were absolutely surprised at what was inside this capsule.

"I-it can't be!" said Sonic.

Oh but it is Sonic. A figure was inside the capsule. It looked like this black hedgehog with some red on his spines. With that white furred chest, it was obvious who this person was. It's been five years since the Space Colony Ark adventures, but apparently the other hero had survived the crash. Inside the capsule was none other then Shadow the Hedgehog. His eyes were closed, as it seemed like he was in deep rest. But before Sonic, Tails, and Rouge could swallow what they had just stumbled upon to, Shadow's eyelids opened up, awakening from his rest...

**Conclusion**

What is Shadow doing in Eggman's old base? Who could've stolen the master emerald? And why is Silver looking for Eggman? All this on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs.

Hope you enjoyed the first episode! Please critique or praise, I don't really care as long as you're reading. Stay tuned for the next episode!


	2. An Old Base

RidersDX here again with the second episode of Desperate Hedgehogs! A lot has been thrown at you from the first episode, but more only gets thrown on you in the second installment to this series! I hope you guys enjoy after being introduced to the four starring hedgehogs of this cast!

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Everyone halted their current activities when it was discovered that the mad scientist, Dr. Eggman, had escaped prison. Amy Rose saw it as an opportunity to finally get the love of her life by going on her own mission to catch the doctor, but she found something unusual which was the disappearance of the master emerald.

Meanwhile, a mysterious white hedgehog has appeared in the area, which the Chaotix are assisting, whether he wants them to or not. But just who is this hedgehog, and what does he want with Dr. Eggman?

And Sonic finally gets going on another adventure, receiving a request from the president to go search and defeat Eggman. But when he and his partners explore Eggman's old Mystic Ruins base, they discover their old friend, Shadow the Hedgehog, who was assumed to be dead...

**Sonic/Shadow**

Shock was all three of the people in the room could feel. Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles Tails Prower, and Rouge the Bat came into the abandoned Mystic Ruins base of Dr. Eggman to look for the mad scientist himself, who had recently escaped from the GUN prison. But what they found instead, was an old friend that they thought had left planet Earth five years ago after a long hard battle against his prototype. But that wasn't the case, as the very same creature just opened his eyes in the capsule he was trapped in.

When his eyes opened, the three were just left speechless. They didn't know what to expect from the old friend, but they got their answer, when Shadow broke out, destroying the capsule he was trapped in, releasing the liquid his body was apparently swimming in. Shadow landed on the ground, and slowly approached the three, who almost began to walk away.

"S-Shadow?" asked Sonic.

"Who has awakened me from my rest?" asked Shadow. "Who are you?" Shadow then pointed to Sonic. "And why do you look like me?"

"Shadow, don't you remember us?" asked Sonic. Sonic was pretty surprised at Shadow's immediate amnesia, but then again, he didn't really know what to expect from someone that was thought to be dead for five whole years.

Shadow shook his head. "No, I don't. I think I would remember someone like you that looked a lot like me." Suddenly, Shadow received a nudge inside his head that only he seemed to hear. He covered his ears trying to make the sound not as loud, which made Sonic, Tails, and Rouge look at him weirdly as they couldn't hear anything. "Ugh!" Shadow screamed.

"Shadow what's wrong?" asked Sonic. Sonic was worried, as he didn't know what to expect next from this surprising creature. In fact, Sonic wondered if this was the real Shadow at all. It would take a miracle to survive something like that.

Shadow suddenly stopped hearing the nudge in his head, and he slowly looked up at the three just staring at him. He suddenly knew exactly what he was gonna do next, which was, "Intruders, you're not supposed to be here," said Shadow. "Now, either leave now or face my wrath!"

All three of the people staring at Shadow gasped, as the thing they were least expecting was a brutal beating from the ultimate life form. "Shadow, I don't want to fight you!" said Sonic.

"Well that's too bad," said Shadow.

Suddenly, Shadow jumped towards Sonic, kicking him in the stomach pushing him all the way into the wall. Sonic crashes into the wall, and slowly falls to the ground. Shocked faces on Rouge and Tails, they tried their best to stay out of the hedgehog versus hedgehog fight. Sonic slowly got up, barely bruised by the attack. It would take a lot more to defeat someone like Sonic.

"Alright Shadow, if this is how you want our reunion to go, I have no problems with that!" exclaimed Sonic.

Sonic then charged at Shadow, a little angry for being attacked by someone he considered a friend. But he had to assume that this was no longer the Shadow he remembered, in hopes of being able to beat him and then be able to get answers out of him. Sonic began rapidly punching Shadow, with Shadow blocking almost all the attacks. Shadow jumped backwards to avoid anymore punches. Sonic was getting ready to spin dash into Shadow, but Shadow threw a chaos spear at Sonic after screaming those words, knocking Sonic out of his ball form throwing him backwards.

Sonic quickly got up and began circling around Shadow. Shadow was a bit confused by this, but then realized what Sonic was doing when Shadow was flung into the air by the bluest of all tornadoes. Sonic then jumped up to where Shadow was and began repeatably spinning into him in his ball form left and right, and then finishing it off with a slam dunk towards the ground. But Shadow quickly recovered, and landed on the ground slowly. Shadow chaos controlled himself away, leaving Sonic wondering where he was. But Shadow appeared right behind him, and quickly began punching him rapidly.

But Sonic was one step ahead and jumped away. The two suddenly got into their ball forms, and began hitting each other like pinballs, each trying to hit harder then the other trying to get each other out of their ball forms and then finishing them off with a final blow. But nothing budged them, and this fight seemed like it'd be taking awhile between two evenly matched hedgehogs.

**Amy**

While the two hedgehogs fight, near the Mystic Ruins forest, lied a floating island. Or should I say, once a floating island? Angel Island has stopped floating, and is now floating on top of the ocean, due to the master emerald being taken away from a red echidna. He didn't know what had happened, he just knew it happened while he was being taken out by Amy Rose, who was really taking him out to get his help on her in her quest to win Sonic's love after so many years of trying to pursue it. Knuckles, the red echidna, was not very happy hearing Amy's true motives, and he certainly wasn't happy when he found out that Vector let the master emerald slip away.

Everyone was surprised from the sudden collapse of the island, and they all laid on the island resting. Trying to recover from the sudden amounts of water that had entered their bodies. Everything on the island was soaking wet from plunging into the ocean, and the same could be basically said for the people on the island.

Amy Rose suddenly opened her eyes though, and slowly got up, coughing out all the water that was in her mouth. She stared at her surroundings seeing how everyone was all shaken up by the sudden crash. "Oh my," she said. "So that's what happens whenever the master emerald goes missing?"

Knuckles suddenly got up, and quickly ran to the spot where the master emerald was supposed to be sitting. He fell to his knees, and hit the ground with his hand, expressing his anger for ever leaving the master emerald in the hands of such an irresponsible crocodile. "Ugh, I shouldn't have ever left this island!" cried Knuckles.

Vector suddenly woke, seeing a very angry Knuckles right in front of him. He quickly got up and got away from Knuckles as quickly as he could. He went to Amy, and then asked, "So um, I'm still getting paid right?"

Amy sighed, but surprisingly actually gave Vector some rings. This angered Knuckles, who quickly came running towards the two immediately.

"HEY, what are you doing giving this idiot money?" exclaimed Knuckles.

"Well, I kinda promised him anyway, I mean, he did try his best," said Amy.

"Hey Knuckles, um, we're still friends right?" Vector said, sweating as much as a crocodile could.

Knuckles' eyes made him look like he was in absolute rage. Vector took that as a sign and quickly ran to the edge of the island and jumped off into the ocean. What? Crocodiles can swim...or are those alligators? Knuckles sighed, not knowing how he was going to live with himself after five years of perfect guarding.

Cream suddenly slowly got up, along with her pet chao Cheese. They looked around at the wet island, and sighed at everything they were seeing. "Wow, this island looks really sad now," Cream said.

"I can't believe I even thought about leaving this island, no idiot but me seems to have the ability to keep this emerald in one place!" said a frustrated Knuckles.

Amy looked pretty sad, she did feel pretty guilty. "Hey Knuckles, I know you think this is all my fault," said Amy.

Knuckles shook his head. "No, this is strictly my fault. I should never had went with you guys, as a guardian of the most powerful object in the universe, I should have known better."

Amy looked pretty angry all of a sudden, which was a surprising change to Knuckles, who started to look a little scared. "Now you listen here Knuckles! It doesn't take a genius to know that spending your entire life on an island by yourself is a horrible thing to do to yourself! Stop blaming yourself for a natural craving, and instead, let's get going and try to figure out who stole the freakin' emerald!"

Knuckles, Cream, and Cheese were all very surprised at Amy's outburst. I guess she was getting tired of feeling guilty, and was maybe looking for a way to ease the guilt off of her shoulders. However, Knuckles was in agreement that it was time to actually stop wasting time, and really time to find that master emerald.

"Ugh, I wish that Vector told us how the master emerald went missing," said Knuckles.

"Maybe if you didn't look like you were about to attack him, he would've explained why the master emerald was stolen," said a very smart ass like Cream.

"What was that?" asked a very annoyed Knuckles.

Cream looked very scared suddenly. She may be a nice rabbit, but she also was not very bright. She unfortunately gets on Knuckles' nerves even when she doesn't mean to.

Amy tried to calm the sudden tension. Cream's truthful yet innocent comments can get her into a lot of trouble, that much Amy knew from experience. "Well then, why don't we go try to find Vector and see if we can get an answer out of him?" asked Amy.

Knuckles nodded, and started flying off the island and towards solid ground near ahead of him. Amy and Cream quickly followed, with Amy grabbing onto Cream, and Cheese followed closely behind. Before Cream let Amy grab her legs though, she said, "I thought we were gonna go shopping today."

**Silver**

Speaking of Vector, he was suddenly swimming on a river in the Mystic Ruins forest. He must've swam a pretty long way at this point, but Vector was no doubt a good swimmer, so he probably didn't have a hard time to get to where he as. He finally did get out of the river though, and was finally standing on solid ground.

Vector was coughing out the water he had gotten from jumping into the water in the first place. He knew Knuckles for a long time, since the days he actually was a part of the Chaotix team, so he knew all about Knuckles' temper, and he wasn't going to be a victim of it like he was in the past. Vector knew the rivers really well, so he was pretty sure he was close to the Chaotix Detective house.

Meanwhile at the Chaotix house, we have Silver, Espio, and Charmy just about to go on a little quest to help Silver in his search for Dr. Eggman. But there was one thing Silver didn't quite understand, which was revealed when he said, "So, why aren't we going yet? We're wasting time!"

Espio turned to Silver, a little annoyed by Silver's impatience. He then said, "Patience is key if you really want something. Maybe as a government agent, you should know that."

Silver wasn't what Espio and Charmy thought he was at all, so he obviously wouldn't know how to be patient, like government agents of this area seem to need to have. Silver just sighed and continued waiting, although he forgot what they were waiting for in the first place. Silver decided not to ask though, he wasn't really the person that felt comfortable saying just about anything.

"There he is!" Charmy suddenly said.

In the direction all three of them were looking came Vector, who had recently swam all the way from Angel Island. Silver remembered why they were waiting now. Apparently, he was waiting for the leader to come back, who is going to be guiding them in their recently acquired mission.

"WELCOME HOME VECTOR!" shouted Charmy.

"Shut up Charmy!" said a very annoyed Vector. "I just had to swim all the way here from Angel Island so don't do anything stupid! Anyway, what was the big emergency?" Vector then noticed the presence of Silver. Quite curious about the person he's never seen before, Vector asked, "And who might this be?"

Silver was about to answer Vector's question, but Espio went and did it before he got the chance to when he said, "This is Silver, and he has a mission for us. And he says he'll be paying us as well."

Silver actually wasn't sure how he was going to pay the Chaotix, as he really didn't have any rings on him. Maybe he could find some while on his search with them for Eggman, or maybe he'd try to lose them during the journey. Either way, the Chaotix weren't going to leave his side at all, as proven with the desperateness Charmy had shown before. So Silver was gonna be stuck with money hungry detectives either way.

Suddenly, Vector stared into the sky as if he had money signs in his eyes. With his obtained money through Amy and this white hedgehog's money adding to it, their lives were bound to finally be saved. Maybe they could afford a mansion. Vector snapped out of it quickly though, and headed straight to the mission to try to get his money quickly. "So then, what's the mission?" asked Vector.

"Silver is apparently a government agent who's been assigned to track down Dr. Eggman," said Espio.

"Oh yeah, I've heard about that," said Vector.

"Well then why didn't you tell us about it?" asked Espio. "Charmy and I literally just found out now!"

"Well, it never really concerned us did it?" Vector then turned to Silver. "Until now that is. Okay Silver, we'll be happy to help you complete your mission! First, we should think of areas Dr. Eggman could possibly be hiding at. I mean, he's only been out for a month, so he couldn't have made an entirely new base in some location we don't know. No, it's gotta be something already built that would work fine for Eggman."

Charmy, actually using his mind to think up a possible answer, said, "What about Eggman's old base right here in the Mystic Ruins?"

"C-Charmy, that's a brilliant idea!" said Vector. He was pretty shocked by how sometimes Charmy wasn't a complete idiot, though people can suppose that's just part of Charmy's charm. No pun intended. "Alright then, let's head to the old Mystic Ruins base and see if we can find any clues or even Eggman in there!"

"Sounds good to me," said Silver. Everyone else nodded, and they all started to head for the old base that was at its peak during the era with Chaos. Now though, it didn't seem to hold much use, at least, that's what the cover makes it look like...

**Sonic/Shadow**

Meanwhile inside the old Mysitc Ruins base, two old rivals were battling it out yet again after so many years of separation. Sonic and Shadow the hedgehogs, were having their reunion with quite the battle. The battle scene now seemed more torn up, as there were even more broken machines everywhere. Tails and Rouge still stood back, just watching the two rivals battle it out. Though, they were still pretty confused on why Shadow was exactly fighting Sonic, they wouldn't dare interrupt the fight.

Shadow suddenly landed on the ground, and seemed to be resting for a bit. "Hmph, not bad hedgehog," said Shadow. "But whoever you are, I'm just getting warmed up."

Sonic then finally landed, and was resting as well. "Shadow, does the name Sonic sound familiar?" he asked.

Shadow paused for a second, trying to answer his rival's question. Shadow was thinking hard for a bit, when suddenly, his mind portrayed sudden flashbacks of him and Sonic in the middle of the city at night, where he stood in front of him, holding a chaos emerald. Shadow quickly ended the flashback, afraid of what was to come from it. He then answered Sonic by saying, "Doesn't ring a bell rat!"

Shadow then suddenly charged at Sonic throwing many punches at his face and then finally kicking him up towards the ceiling. Sonic crashes into the ceiling and slowly falls to the ground, until Shadow interrupts and kicks him into a wall. Shadow was suddenly becoming more aggressive.

Sonic noticed to sudden increase in Shadow's power. He didn't know why Shadow was suddenly attacking him so much harder, but Sonic knew it meant it was time to get down to business. Sonic jumped up and started charging for a spin dash. At least, that's what it looked like. But in reality, he was charging for a light speed attack.

Shadow had a bad feeling about what Sonic was up to, and began to charge at him getting to throw in some more punches, but Sonic finished charging up his attack, and all of a sudden was a ball bouncing around the room, attacking Shadow left and right. Shadow was knocked all over the place, and it seemed like it wouldn't be stopping anytime soon.

However, Sonic's attack finally wore off, leaving Shadow lying on the floor. "Grr," moaned Shadow.

Sonic began to walk up slowly to the injured Shadow, thinking it was safe to go and talk to him now. But Sonic was wrong, as Shadow suddenly got up, and kicked Sonic in his stomach, making him fly all the way into the wall.

Shadow jumped and dashed to where Sonic was trying to recover. "This battle ends now!" exclaimed Shadow.

Sonic got up, and then said, "I agree!"

Both Sonic and Shadow suddenly used chaos control simultaneously, and began attacking each other. Trying to outsmart the other by appearing in a place so unexpected and attacking them. But Sonic and Shadow kept appearing in the same spots, and they kept punching each other until they teleported to another spot. One just couldn't seem to be able to surprise the other, and this was really annoying the both of them.

But suddenly, Rouge the Bat came between the two, having enough of the useless battle, shouting, "STOP!"

Sonic and Shadow suddenly stopped, temporarily pausing their battle.

**Silver**

Meanwhile outside the Mystic Ruins base just right at the entrance to it, there came Silver, Espio, Charmy, and Vector. They've all finally found the base, and were about to begin searching for clues. The forest was right behind them, it was a lot more open in this area. Silver then asked, "So, is this the base you guys are talking about?"

Vector nodded, and then said, "Yep, this here's the old entrance to the Mystic Ruins base of Dr. Eggman. It may seem like a predictable place for someone like Eggman to hide in, but there's really no other place we can really think of."

Silver nodded then, but as he observed the base, he then commented on it by saying, "Geez, this place looks really busted though."

"Maybe it's a different story inside," Espio suggested.

Charmy then ran to the front of the group and then said, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go and kick some eggs!"

Vector was yet again annoyed by Charmy's behavior, so he showed it by saying, "Charmy, get back to the back of the group! I'm leading this mission!"

Charmy looked down in disappointment, and was secretly scolding Vector in his mind, but Charmy never outright complained, even though he knew exactly what to say if he was to do so. But another day, another time for that to happen Charmy thought, as he knew the group needed some money bad.

So the group finally entered the base, only to find Espio's suggestion to be wrong. The base was a complete and utter mess, full of dust and broken robots and rusting paint. It really did not look like the ideal base for a mad scientist. If Eggman was hiding here, you'd think he'd renovate the base a little.

"Well, it doesn't look like anyone's been here for awhile," said Silver.

"Well, there still has to be some kind of clues at least to Eggman's whereabouts!" said Vector. "And besides, he's only been out for a month, maybe making a decent place was at the bottom of his list."

Everyone else nodded in agreement, and began to search through the base. They were a bit surprised that the lights were on, but then they were thinking it probably was a motion sensing light that turns on whenever someone was in the base.

They continued walking, but then walking, was replaced with falling. This is because suddenly, the group stepped on something that was revealed to be a hole in disguise, and suddenly began falling to their doom. Before all four of them actually crashed into the ground though, Silver and Charmy flew with their natural flying abilities, leaving Espio and Vector with a very unpleasant crash towards the ground.

"What was that all about?" asked Silver.

"It seems to me that the doctor had some booby traps implemented into the base," confirmed Espio.

"Don't worry, I can fly us out of here," said Silver. "It's time to show you guys some of my powers." Silver then suddenly picked up the entire Chaotix using his telekinesis, and began to fly towards the surface. The Chaotix were actually quite stunned at this power, as they didn't know anyone else that had such abilities. But unfortunately, before Silver was able to save the day, the hole they fell through suddenly closed, and all four of them crashed into it, and fell to the ground yet again.

"NO!" cried Silver. Yep, the four of them were stuck.

**Amy**

A few minutes before, as that group was entering the base, another group of four was trying to find Vector. It was none other then Amy, Cream, Cheese, and Knuckles. The four of them came to the entrance to the Mystic Ruins base right after the Chaotix and Silver entered it.

"I could've sworn I saw Vector go through that door with three others," said Knuckles.

This confused the group, as they wondered why in the world Vector would go visit Eggman's old base. Amy expressed her confusion when she said, "Why would he go through that door? This is Eggman's old base."

"I don't know, maybe there's some case they have to solve or something," said Knuckles. "Eggman definitely seems to be a big name at the moment."

Amy suddenly came up with a possibility on the master emerald's disappearance. But it was a rather predictable one, as there's really only one person that would want the master emerald excluding Rouge. "What if Eggman stole the master emerald?"

Knuckles then turned around to Amy, and then nodded in agreement. "It seems very possible, we better go ask Vector just to be sure though."

Knuckles then started to head into the base, and then Amy was about to follow. But before Amy went in, she saw that Cream was just staring at the base. Amy walked over back to Cream, and then told her, "Come on Cream, let's go!"

Cream looked very scared and worried, along with Cheese. Cream then said, "This place looks scary Amy. This is the place where Eggman did all those bad things back then."

"Aww come on Cream, it'll be fun!" Amy then suddenly grabbed Cream and dragged her into the base, Cheese then quickly followed, not wanting to be apart from his owner.

Knuckles stood in the base waiting for Amy and Cream and Cheese to follow. They finally came in, with Knuckles saying, "It took you long enough. They shouldn't be that far ahead so let's get going."

"This place looks really disgusting," said Cream.

"It probably means there'll be nothing to scare you then Cream, because all this junk doesn't look like it works," said Amy.

Cream was a little cheered up because Amy did make a good point. So all four of them started walking through the base, wondering where Vector had gone. But then suddenly they heard a few screams as if they were plunging down to their death. The four were confused though, as they couldn't quite make out the sound.

"Do you think that was Vector?" asked Knuckles.

"Could be," said Amy. The four then began going faster, trying to go in the direction where the sound was coming from.

**Sonic/Shadow**

Back in the room where the two hedgehogs were battling, Rouge the Bat suddenly had stopped the battle from going on any further. "Shadow, why are you fighting Sonic?" asked Rouge.

"That's none of your business!" said Shadow. "And who in the world are you?"

"What Shadow? You don't remember me?" Rouge then smirked and her personality was starting to return to its regular flirty state. "Remember Shadow? I was the one in your group back then that really was a government spy? Even though, I did give you all the chaos emeralds."

Shadow suddenly had another flashback, which contained that precious scene aboard the ark when he had discovered that Rouge was a government spy. He seemed to be quite furious at the bat, remembering how betrayed he had felt towards the bat. And also how confused he had felt with the bat's words, when she had suggested that he wasn't the real Shadow.

Shadow immediately escaped the flashback however, and rage had appeared in his eyes. He attacked Rouge and kicked her into a wall, quite angry at her from the flashback. "Shut up!" he cried. "This has gone on long enough!"

"Oh, so you do remember me?" Rouge concluded as she was slowly recovering from the attack. "It's nice to see you do Shadow."

"Uh Rouge, I think you should be quiet," Tails suggested, very scared of what Shadow was going to do next.

"The fox boy has the right idea," said Shadow. "However, it's a little too late for that. It was fun fighting you...Sonic, but I feel it's time to end this awakening of myself." Shadow suddenly dashed to something in the room, and pressed a button on it, which caused this sudden beeping noise, and the time on it to start moving backwards. It started at ten, then went to nine fifty nine, then nine fifty eight, and continued on.

"In less then ten minutes, you all will be brought down along with the base, when the bomb detonates!" cried Shadow.

Sonic, Tails, and Rouge all had shocked looks on their faces. The last time a bomb like that was dropped was five years ago on Prison Island. Guess Shadow wanted a second round of that excitement. Before the three could scold Shadow for doing that, he chaos controlled out of the area, probably trying to get out of the area quickly.

"We need to get out of here and fast!" shouted Tails.

"I'm way ahead of ya Tails!" shouted Sonic. "Try to catch up ya two!" Sonic then ran out of the room, leaving Rouge and Tails behind.

"Well, he's definitely kept his attitude for these past five years," said Rouge, as she started to take off and then left the room.

Tails then quickly followed, but he thought about Rouge's comment, and agreed with it too in his mind.

**Amy/Sonic**

5 minutes left.

Amy, Cream, Cheese, and Knuckles were still trying to find where that sound they had heard was coming from. Part of it did sound a little like Vector, but it was hard to make out. Knuckles was in the lead, but he suddenly stopped walking, causing the other three to stop their movement as well.

"Ugh, I'm starting to think we're going the wrong way," said Knuckles. "We've been walking for who knows how long and we still can't find them!"

The other three actually felt the same, as it did felt like they were walking aimlessly looking for this random sound that might be Vector, but it also might not be. Everyone was getting tired of walking around, because it seemed like it was going nowhere.

"It doesn't even look like there's anything useful in this base either to help us find the master emerald," said Amy. "Maybe we should wait for Vector to finish whatever he's doing here and return to his house, and then we can ask him there."

The other three nodded in agreement, so they were about to exit the base, wherever the exit was. But all of a sudden, the base started to rumble, causing the group to almost lose their balance. It was as if an earthquake was forming under the base.

"W-what's going on?" asked Cream. "Is it an earthquake?"

"I-I don't know," said Amy.

Suddenly though, three beings ran into the group, one looking like a blue hedgehog, another a yellow fox, and the other a white bat. They all started at each other, surprised at each other's presence.

"Amy, Cream, Knuckles, Cheese?" asked Sonic in confusion of what these guys were doing here.

"Sonic!" said Amy happily. "It's so good to see y-you woah!" Amy said woah because the ground was beginning to shake even more. All of them were starting to get sick of the shaking, as it kept them on their toes, which is something they hadn't experienced in awhile.

"What are you guys doing here?" asked Sonic.

"Sonic, isn't this fate? I mean, you and me running into each other like this!" exclaimed Amy.

"S-Sonic," said Knuckles as the rumbling was getting worst. "D-do you know why the place feels like it's in the middle of an earthquake?"

"Ugh, S-Shadow activated a bomb and this place is going to blow very soon! It must be already starting the process!"

"SHADOW? BOMB?" exclaimed Amy, Cream, and Knuckles. While Cheese just went chao, like all chao do.

"No time to explain!" said Sonic. "We gotta get out of here and fast!"

Everyone nodded in agreement, and started running towards the exit as fast as they could, with the limited amount of time they have left until the bomb detonates.

**Silver**

2 minutes left.

Deep deep deep under the base, were four recent prisoners to the base. Silver was at the top trying to break open the thing that was locking them up in the area. But it was no use, it just didn't seem to budge, no matter what powers he used on it. He tried to move it, destroy it, nothing seemed to work. Silver suddenly came down to the Chaotix, who were just chatting actually.

"I'm sorry guys, I can't seem to get it to open," said Silver. "Do any of you guys have any ideas?"

"Don't worry, one of us will think of something eventually," said Espio. "In the meantime, you should just relax and try to think of something yourself. Remember, patience is virtue."

"But you don't know what's gonna happen if we stay down here too long!" complained Silver. "You guys are here to help me right?" The Chaotix all nodded their heads in agreement. "Well then, I REALLY need your help this time. So if you can try to speed the process up, then try to seem more dedicated to actually trying to get us out of here!"

Espio went tsk tsk tsk at Silver's comment, and the Chaotix continued on with their casual like chats, only bringing up a way to get out from time to time. This angered Silver, who just flew all the way to the top and kept on attacking the thing that sealed them from the outside world.

Suddenly though, the area they were stuck in began to rumble, like an earthquake. It was very very noticeable, and the Chaotix found themselves being thrown everywhere due to the rumbling.

Silver quickly flew down to the Chaotix and got them all up on their feet. "See?" he said. "This is what I mean! We HAVE to find a way out of here NOW!"

"Vector, have you thought of anything yet?" asked Espio.

"Hold on guys, it's hard to think under pressure!" complained Vector.

"It's also hard to t-think when it feels like you're on a roller coaster!" said Charmy.

Vector kept on thinking, as he looked at the thing on the top that sealed them from safety. He kept on thinking, and then finally, he came up with something when he remembered a crucial fact that could get them out. "Espio!" he shouted. "Remember that move you were trying to pull of f last week with making objects invisible?"

Espio nodded his head to the answer. "But I still haven't been able to fully do it yet, and even if I could, it'd be only for a few seconds," he said.

"Well now's the time to master it then!" exclaimed Silver.

Espio nodded, and was carried up to the top by Silver who was flying as fast as he could. Charmy then followed carrying Vector.

1 minute left.

Silver then threw Espio towards the hard surface, and Espio quickly grabbed onto the ceiling. Espio concentrated hard on the ceiling, trying his best to make his powers work. He was struggling and struggling, seeming to not be able to pull off the valuable move.

30 seconds left.

Silver, Charmy, and Vector were sweating, as they knew the rumbling was getting worst and worst and that could only mean worst things were coming. Espio was probably sweating the most, trying to make his power work. But it just seemed hopeless, he was ridiculously out of breath, transferring all of his energy towards the ceiling.

But, by luck, the ceiling suddenly became transparent. Silver, Charmy, and Vector looked relieved, but didn't waste time and quickly jumped through the new hole. Espio them quickly dashed to surface, where he was finally able to catch his breath.

Vector walked over to Espio and patted his back. "You did good pal," he said.

Espio smiled in response to Vector's comment. But then they all turned around and saw a bright flash of light heading right towards them. All four of them began to try to out run the light, but the light was just too fast, and they all became covered by it...

**Shadow/Amy**

10 seconds left.

The base was really starting to rumble now, and it was really starting to crumble too, with all sorts of things falling to the ground from the ceiling. But this didn't stop the seven running from impending doom. Sonic the Hedgehog headed through the door, followed by Tails, Knuckles, then Cream and Cheese. Amy was about to get through the door, but Rouge, who was right behind her, suddenly tripped and fell on Amy. They both were lying on the ground, with only a few seconds left to get up and escape. But both of them were too slow, and the explosion was getting closer and closer.

Suddenly, Shadow appeared out of nowhere, with only five precious seconds left on the clock. "Ugh, it looks like I'll have to chaos control again. CHAOS..." but before Shadow said the second word, he noticed Rouge and Amy in front of him, lying helpless getting ready to be taken by the bomb. Shadow suddenly had these flashbacks of Amy, who was telling him something on the Ark, that seemed to mean a lot to him. Then he had a flashback of Rouge, who was talking to him on the ark, but she didn't seem to have pissed him off at all.

Shadow didn't know why, but he knew he had to disobey what his current thoughts said. As the timer on the bomb reached 0:00, Shadow skates to the two ladies. Touching both of them, Shadow then screams, "CHAOS CONTROL!" He, and Amy and Rouge then suddenly disappeared, right before the floor they were on exploded.

**?**

It was about time the Mystic Ruins was finally erased from existence. Nothing but bad memories seemed to come from the base. And even for someone like Dr. Eggman, the base seemed utterly useless now due to the lack of maintenance for five years.

This person was watching the base explode in front of his monitor. All the destruction he witnessed, he just sat still and stayed speechless in the dark room. But if you looked closely at the person's eye, you could see a tear escape his eyes as he watched the destruction behind the glasses.

"I'm gonna miss that beauty," he said. "But I had to do it, there was too much evidence in there."

The monitor then showed a picture of Shadow. The person then began to grin, saying, "He did exactly what he was supposed to do, that's all that matters."

The room suddenly seemed to grow a little brighter, until you could fully see the person's face. The face was so popular, yet so controversial. Everyone hated his guts, but he didn't care. He let out an evil laugh he hadn't been able to laugh like a long time, because he was Dr. Eggman, ready to enslave the world.

**Conclusion**

What will become of Silver, the Chaotix, Shadow, Rouge, and Amy? Where will Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and Cheese go from here? And where is Dr. Eggman now? All this, on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs.

As always, you're encouraged to review, whether it's to criticize or praise. I just want to know if people are actually reading this crap. xD


	3. The Aftereffects

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Sonic, Tails, and Rouge discovered an old friend, Shadow the Hedgehog, trapped in Eggman's old base. Their reunion unfortunately ended in one of the worst ways possible as Shadow was looking for a fight rather then catching up.

Amy, Cream, Cheese, and Knuckles went on a search for the master emerald. It's led them to Eggman's old Mystic Ruins base, but they didn't seem to find much.

Silver met Vector, and they started their search for Dr. Eggman. They also decided to go enter the Mystic Ruins base, trying to look for clues and maybe even Eggman himself.

But plans changed when Shadow activated a time bomb that sent everyone running towards the exit. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and Cheese were able to exit. But the fates of the Chaotix and Silver are unknown. And where has Shadow taken Amy and Rouge? And what does Eggman exactly have to do with everything?

**Sonic**

So many memories came to the minds of some people when they were to look at the Mystic Ruins base that belonged to Dr. Eggman. It was deep and hidden in the dark green forest of the ruins. But now, the base was gone, ten minutes after Shadow had unexpectedly activated a bomb that no one knew existed in the first place. But it doesn't matter, what matters now is that the base is gone, and a place that could have contained tons of clues to find Eggman was gone.

A blue hedgehog, a yellow fox, a red echidna, a peach rabbit, and an average chao stared at all the remaining pieces of the base. It had been only a minute after the bomb had truly detonated. They stared at all the destruction deep in the forest, amazed at the sight. They didn't know this would be the fate of the base until ten minutes ago, five for Knuckles, Cream, and Cheese.

"Wow, it's really gone," said Knuckles looking out into the flames burning the remainder of the base.

"Yeah, I can't believe it," said Sonic as he walked over to Knuckles.

"Gosh, I never thought this place would actually get destroyed," said Tails.

Cream and Cheese took a step back and looked away from the destruction, as they couldn't bear any more of seeing such destruction. They both were crying, trying to comfort each other because they knew if they hadn't run into Sonic they would have never escaped.

They both turned around and took a look around. But Cream noticed something extremely important was missing, and this showed in her face in an instant. Cheese noticed, and knew exactly what Cream was thinking too, as his face showed the same expression. "AMY?" screamed Cream. "W-where's Amy?"

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles suddenly looked around, both surprised by Cream's outburst and wondering where exactly Amy was. They searched as far as their eyes could, and they couldn't find a trace of Amy anywhere.

"Now that you mention it, she's not here...," said Knuckles, who sounded very worried.

Tails kept looking around, as he noticed there was another person missing as well. "R-Rouge is missing too!" said Tails, who also sounded very worried. "Where could they both possibly be? I'm sure they were with us before!"

Suddenly, all five of them simultaneously thought up what could've possibly happened to their friends, and this sense of horror came to their faces, as what was in their minds was probably the worst possible scenario that could ever be thought up.

"N-no, that couldn't have happened," said Tails.

"Well to be honest, the base had exploded as soon as Cream and Cheese came out of the base," said Knuckles. "I-I'm sorry, but it's possible guys."

"No!" shouted Cream. "That can't be true! Amy's my best friend, she can't be..." Cream couldn't bring herself to say that word that started with a d. She was in tears, it wasn't normal for someone under the age of thirteen to have to deal with a dead friend. Cheese cried along with Cream, and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles just looked down at the ground.

Knuckles walked over to Cream and Cheese and tried to comfort them, as he was with Amy too, and she was very nice to Knuckles as well. Sonic and Tails looked at them, with all sorts of sad thoughts in their heads. Were Amy and Rouge really gone?

Knuckles suddenly remembered something while comforting Cream and Cheese, and then said, "H-hey, the Chaotix and this guy I didn't know entered the base right before we did. Where are they now?"

Tails shook his head in frustration and worry. Their adventures involving Eggman were always tense but, they never lost any close friends. He sighed and said, "Look, I'll call the president and ask him to send troops here to search for Amy, Rouge, and the Chaotix. Maybe some of them are still alive out there and that they'll be found."

"That sounds like a good plan Tails," said Sonic.

Tails took out his phone and dialed the number for the president. He took the phone to his ear and then said, "Mr. President. It's Tails. I'm here to report that Eggman's old base in the Mystic Ruins base had recently exploded because of an activated time bomb. Unfortunately, not everyone I know that was in the base has escaped, so we need to find some of these missing people immediately."

**Silver**

Eyes were closed, the body that those eyes belonged to were resting in a nice bed that you could probably just lie on for the rest of your life. But, the eyes suddenly opened, and the person looked at the white setting, and the white room. The person was in some white clothes and had many appliances attached. We finally get a look at the figure, and it's none other, then Silver the Hedgehog.

"Ugh," he moaned. "W-where am I?"

Silver saw that the room wasn't too big, his bed took up most of the place. There were many appliances hooked up to him, and he just felt very weird overall with what the appliances were doing to him. But it didn't feel bad, it felt like it was making him feel better actually.

Suddenly, a girl in a hospital like uniform came in with a clipboard. She saw that Silver was awake and was actually pretty stunned, probably not expecting him to be awake. "Oh my, you're awake," she said.

"W-where am I?" asked Silver, who was barely awake.

"You're in the hospital," said the girl. "And I'm the nurse assigned to checking up on you!" The nurse walked closer to Silver, seeming like she wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon. "How are you feeling?"

Silver then said, "Oh, I guess I'm fine. So I'm in the hospital then."

The nurse nodded. "Yes, you're in great care. It's lucky that we were able to find you before something happened to you that would've been un-treatable. Now, just rest, we'll worry about other things later. What you need to do now is just relax and focus on recovery sweety."

Silver nodded and smiled. "Thank you."

The nurse smiled and was about to leave the room. But before that, she turned around and said, "By the way, what's your name?"

Silver then said, "Silver." Silver's face then turned around as he stared out the window, as the nurse finally left the room and then closed the door.

But Silver was thinking about a lot of things, he couldn't even think about recovering. He had so many questions. He didn't know how hospitals worked here, and he thought a lot of things were strange. "Where am I..."

**Sonic**

The forest fire was starting to calm down, as there were now troops everywhere trying to calm all the destruction to preserve all signs of evidence that could be used to actually find the doctor. Cream and Cheese were still crying, Knuckles was still comforting them, and Sonic and Tails were observing the entire process.

"I can't believe Shadow is back," said Sonic.

"I know," said Tails. "Why would he activate that bomb and try to kill us all?"

"I don't know Tails, this whole thing just reeks Eggman, and I'm not liking the smell."

"The more reason to find him. Sonic, it's hard to realize that some of our friends might be gone, but we need to continue this search as soon as possible. The government should have everything under control here."

Sonic nodded his head in agreement, and then said, "Sounds good Tails. It's not like we can do anything right now anyway."

Sonic then walked over to Cream, who seemed to be trying to wrap up her crying with Cheese. He then told her, "Hey Cream, are you and Cheese gonna be okay?"

Cream sniffed trying to stop crying to answer Sonic's question. She finally said, "Um, yeah. I think we're gonna go home right now. My mom must be really worried because I forgot to tell her where we were going."

"Good idea Cream, tell Vanilla I said hi," said Sonic. Cream nodded in return, and she and Cheese waved to the other three and started walking away towards wherever her house was.

Knuckles walked over to Sonic and Tails, who seemed to be beginning to take off themselves. Knuckles stops, and then said, "So um, what were you guys doing in the Mystic Ruins base anyway?"

"We were looking for some clues to Eggman's whereabouts," said Sonic. "Obviously though, we found something a lot more interesting then that."

Knuckles knew exactly what Sonic was referring to, proving it when he said, "Oh yeah, Shadow. You mind explaining what all that is about? I mean, he's been away for five years after all."

"Yeah, we know about as much as you probably do Knuckles. But since he was in Eggman's base and all, who knows, maybe Eggman has something to do with this. Tails and I need to get going though, we're supposed to find that egghead sooner or later. Sucks that Rouge is um...well..."

Knuckles sighed and looked down at the ground. "I haven't seen her in forever, I wonder how she's been doing after all these years."

"Well, she's the same as ever."

"Well, that's good to know I guess. Um...hey guys, do you mind if I come along?"

Sonic and Tails were a bit surprised by Knuckles' comment. They thought he had other things to do like, protect the master emerald. Sonic said, "Sure Knuckles but, don't you have some giant green rock to protect?"

"Well, Vector was in charge of it, and when I got back, I found out that the master emerald was gone. I came to this base to try to ask Vector about it, and obviously, he might still be down there. So maybe if I just travel with you guys, I might find the master emerald since Eggman could always had just stolen it."

"What else is new?" asked Sonic in a joking like way.

"Hey now, it was that idiotic crocodile that..."

"Hold up guys!" said Tails. "Of course you can come with us Knuckles. It's actually been awhile since all three of us came together like this."

"Well, let's get started then," said Sonic.

**Amy/Shadow**

"Ugh..."

The eyes slowly opened up. The figure was laying down on the cold brown dusty ground. The figure sits up and sees some bars in front of her. The figure then looks behind, and sees a wall. The figure then looks to her right, and notices a white bat also laying on the ground. Yes, this figure was the pink hedgehog named Amy Rose, who was miraculously saved along with Rouge the Bat from an impending death.

"W-where am I?" she asked.

Suddenly, Rouge began to sit up, waking up thanks to Amy's loud voice. Rouge's eyes opened, as she petted her head. "Could you keep it down, I'm busy looking at my jewels...," she said.

Amy's face showed a bit of shock, as she definitely didn't expect to be sitting there waking up to Rouge. "Rouge?" she asked.

"Amy? What in the world are you doing in my vault?" It was obvious Rouge was having a typical dream while she was asleep. Rouge annoyed Amy very much because of her thieving nature, and her dreams definitely showed what kind of person Rouge was. At least, the Rouge that she portrays.

"No Rouge, get out of dream world, because I don't know where we are," Amy asked.

Amy was right, and Rouge realized that when she finally woke up and saw what kind of place they were in. The room they were in seemed a little small for two girls, but there were bars in front of them. They came to the conclusion that they were being trapped like prisoners, but the question is, by who?

"Wow, where the heck are we?" asked Rouge.

"Weren't we running from a time bomb before?" asked Amy.

Rouge nodded. "Yeah, we were. So, how did we end up here?"

The room seemed like part of the inside of a pyramid, as there were Egyptian like paintings all over the walls, with hieroglyphics standing right next to them. The ground looked like it was made out of bricks covered in sand, although all that could be really felt was dust. This disgusted the girls, as they were sleeping on the ground with this dust.

"Ugh, this place is gross!" said Amy.

"My clothes are covered in dust," said Rouge.

It seemed like the Mystic Ruins base, where there was dust everywhere as if the place wasn't cleaned up in forever. But there were no machines anywhere, especially Eggman kinds. However, something about the place seemed very familiar to them both, but they couldn't put their finger on it.

Suddenly, the girls could hear footsteps coming towards them. The girls were suddenly shocked, as they didn't know anyone else was there. They stood there facing the wall in front of them so far away, blocked by the bars, waiting for the person that was walking towards them to appear. The footsteps got louder and louder, and the girls just kept on wondering who the person was. They got more and more nervous, until the figure was revealed to be the black hedgehog that had so many questions surrounding them.

"S-Shadow?" they both asked.

"Hey you two," Shadow said. "Did you have a nice rest?"

"Shadow, where are we?" asked Amy. "What are you doing here?"

"That's not important right now," said Shadow.

"No, it is Shadow," Rouge suddenly said. "Where are we?

Shadow paused for a second, wondering how to answer Rouge's question. Rouge seemed pretty pissed, she obviously wasn't the kind of person that liked to not be in control. Rouge always seemed to be the person in control of the situation, but this situation was clearly not in her virtue.

"I'm sorry, you can't know that yet," said Shadow.

"Why not?" asked Rouge.

"Look, you should be glad that you are even alive," said Shadow.

Shadow didn't mean to say that. He wasn't supposed to tell the two prisoners much for some reason, and it showed in his face that he knew he wasn't supposed to let something like that slip.

"W-what do you mean Shadow?" asked Amy.

Shadow sighed, knowing he wasn't gonna get away with this with a lie. "Okay, the truth is, you two fell in the Mystic Ruins base and didn't seem like you two would be getting out of the base in time. So, I chaos controlled you two here. That's why you should be glad."

"Oh wow, thanks...Shadow," Rouge said.

Shadow nodded and began walking away from the cell. Amy's face was filled with shock, as this was the first time she had seen Shadow in such a long time. Rouge was just as surprised, as the last time she communicated with Shadow, Shadow had attacked her pushing her into a wall.

"Rouge, what's going on?" Amy asked.

**Silver**

A white hedgehog named Silver was finally up on his feet after a bit of rest. All the appliances that were attached to him were taken off, as Silver was finally aloud to walk across the hospital. Perhaps he would see his new friends, the Chaotix, and then get out of the hospital as soon as possible to go continue on their search for Dr. Eggman. Silver had some questions of his own though, like how he got into the hospital anyway. But first, he just needed to see his friends. So, he went all around the hospital looking for the Chaotix. It took awhile, but he finally found a room with a purple chameleon in it. He had found Espio.

Espio was sitting on the bed, not hooked up to any appliances, just meditating. It seemed like he had finish recovery just as fast as Silver had. It looked like his friends really were in this large white colored hospital. Silver walked over to Espio, wondering if Espio could sense his presence.

"Hello Silver," Espio suddenly said, with his eyes fully closed.

Silver was a bit surprised that Espio was able to figure out he was there while keeping his eyes closed. Silver got over that quickly though, then said, "H-how did you know I was here?"

Espio got ready to say yet another one of his tips for a ninja. "If you want to defeat your opponent, you must be able to sense your opponent from miles away."

Silver nodded, he didn't expect anything less from someone like Espio. It was pretty clear at that point Espio was the kind of guy that just liked to think of himself as this wise leader that always had great advice. "So um, are Vector and Charmy here too?" Silver asked.

"Yes, if you had asked the nurses like I did, you would have known," Espio said, sounding a little annoyed.

"Well sorry then," Silver said, not completely understanding why Espio sounded so annoyed.

"Look, a ninja shouldn't be interrupted during his or her meditation," Espio said. "So please, we'll talk later, please exit through the door."

Silver sighed and understood. Espio wasn't the nicest person to him so far, but he wasn't going to start anything, there wasn't any real big reason to go off on him. So Silver just exited the room, and continued walking around the hospital to find the two other Chaotix members.

Silver walked up a floor, looking at the names at each of the doors he was passing. This definitely seemed like a big hospital that could hold tons and tons of patients. But, his search finally paid off, when he spotted Charmy's name on a door. He opened up the door, and walked inside, to see Charmy playing video games in front of the TV in his room.

"Ch-Charmy?" asked Silver.

"Yahoo!" shouted Charmy, who seemed to be completely forgetting that he was in the hospital. He may be part of a detective agency, but he was still a kid. A little more mature then he was five years ago, but still pretty childish being a pre-teen. "Hey Silver!"

Silver felt like a babysitter, seeing someone as childish as Charmy having the time of his life. But it was the least of Silver's worries. He just wanted to see if Charmy was okay. "Hey Charmy," Silver said. "You've recovered too?"

"Yeah, but this is the coolest hospital ever!" Charmy said, while still keeping his eyes on the TV. "I never heard of a hospital with video games before, we don't have any of these games back at the detective house!"

Silver walked over to Charmy, and saw the game cover sitting right next to him on the bed. Silver didn't bother to see what the game was however, his eyes was just on the television screen. The game seemed a little bit...mature for Charmy. He saw it was some FPS shooter, with lots of blood in it. Silver wasn't concerned however, he barely knew Charmy.

"I didn't know hospitals had video games for patients," Silver said.

"Well, I guess this one did!" Charmy said in happiness, still playing his video game.

Silver still wondered how they had gotten to this hospital, he forgot what had happened back at the Mystic Ruins base. But, maybe Charmy knew. He was a kid, but he might have a good memory. "Hey Charmy, do you remember how we all got here?" he asked.

Charmy shook his head while playing his video game. "Nope, but who cares!" he said.

Silver nodded, and exited the room. But he started getting these suspicions, as he had started to figure out, something wasn't right about this whole situation. How had he gotten here in the first place? The last thing he remembered was running away from something. Maybe, the leader would have some answers. Silver set off to look for Vector's room.

**Sonic**

Ah, the classic trio that used to fight against Eggman. Well, at least the majority did. For a bit, the red echidna of the trio was fighting with Eggman, but he had obviously eventually come to his senses. Knuckles still saw Sonic as a threat in some ways skill wise, but they were no doubt on the same team now. These three haven't seen each other in a long time, so it seemed like quite the reunion. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were out of the Mystic Ruins forest, pretty close to the train station.

The three were walking, just coming out of the forest from the cave that was the entrance into it. Mystic Ruins was still the same place it was five years ago. Thankfully, Perfect Chaos' damage was only limited to Station Square, which the Mystic Ruins was actually far from. So the Mystic Ruins really didn't have much to worry about.

Knuckles thought about what had happened to the Chaotix. He hoped that they were okay, and that they would turn up sometime soon, as he needed answers from Vector soon. He needed to know what had happened to the master emerald. He hoped this reunion with Sonic and Tails would lead him somewhere.

Knuckles was thinking so much though, he forgot where the three of them were going. So he asked, "Um guys, where are we headed off to again?"

Sonic chuckled, as he was pretty sure Knuckles had heard before. "Knuckles, we're heading off to Tails' lab to see if he could possibly find Eggman," said Sonic. "But I'm not sure if there's anything on the internet that can help us ya know."

Tails then said sounding annoyed, "Well Sonic, if you were listening as well, you would know that I suggested going to the lab because maybe we could find other locations Eggman could be hiding out at. You know, more clues?"

Sonic nodded. "That's right," he said. "Gee, I hope Amy, Rouge, and the Chaotix are okay. I mean, that bomb was pretty intense and all but, they can't be gone, can they?" Sonic's voice definitely had shown a sign of worry, which you didn't hear in him most of the time. When Sonic was worried, he was definitely worried.

Knuckles sighed. "Well, we can't just sit around and pause our lives for them, we have to solve the questions that are out there," Knuckles said.

"You're right Knuckles, I didn't expect to hear such wisdom out of ya."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ah nothin' just messin' with ya Knuckles, it's been five years after all, right?"

"Well unfortunately, it looks like you haven't changed."

Sonic loved to play around with Knuckles, as Sonic always thought he was one step ahead of the echidna, no matter how much Knuckles tried. They've come a long way to be friends now, and despite some minor things like Knuckles being tricked to battle Sonic again by Eggman when Chaos was around, their friendship remained intact. Although, they both hadn't spoken in five years, the trio didn't have any contact with each other in five years.

The three walked up the stairs to Tails' lab, which seems to have gotten the upgrade. It was about ten times the size of the lab that was there five years ago. It probably wasn't the biggest lab out there, but it was pretty big for only one scientist. The three entered the lab to be met with hundreds of inventions and a big monitor all the way in the back.

Sonic, amazed at the sight, said, "Tails...this is your lab?"

Tails nodded, and felt a little proud that Sonic and Knuckles were amazed at the sight. "Yep, I've been pretty busy these past five years," he said. Tails flew to the computer at the back, with Sonic and Knuckles quickly following.

Tails had reached the computer, and began typing on the keyboard in front of the huge monitor screen, looking like he was getting started on his work. "Hey guys, this might take awhile so you can look around, or wait outside if you want," he said.

Sonic nodded and smirked, and went to exit the lab, giving Knuckles a gesture to come with him. Knuckles noticed the gesture, and followed Sonic out.

Sonic walked to the side of the lab, and stopped there, waiting for Knuckles. Knuckles came, wondering what Sonic could possibly want.

"So Knuckles, you do realize it's been five years since we've last seen each other right?" asked Sonic.

Knuckles nodded, saying, "I would've visited, but I had to be guarding the master emerald. Whenever I let someone else guard it, it seems like they fail on the job, and that's really annoying too!"

Sonic chucked at Knuckles, who still seemed to be pretty pissed that Vector lost the master emerald. And since Vector could possibly be dead, Knuckles might not be able to get a clue to where Vector may be.

"So Sonic, why haven't you visited me yourself?" asked Knuckles.

Sonic hesitated to answer for a bit, as he honestly didn't want to answer the question at the moment. But he began to answer it, by saying, "Well, to be honest Knuckles, I haven't really had contact with anyone during these past five years."

Knuckles was actually a bit surprised at Sonic's comment. He thought of all people, Sonic would be the one to keep in close contact with everyone. But, it looks like that wasn't the case. Maybe Sonic had a similar reason to Knuckles on isolating himself from everyone. "Why Sonic?" he asked.

Sonic was about to answer Knuckles' question, but before he did, he got lucky, and noticed something sparkling in a bush right next to Tails' lab. "Hey Knuckles, look!" he said.

Sonic and Knuckles walked over to the sparkling bush, wondering what could possibly be in it. Sonic reached into the bush carefully, not sure what to expect to be touching in there. But Sonic's face showed a sense of shock, when he took out a green sparkling shard. "Knuckles, is this what I think it is?" asked Sonic.

Knuckles' face showed nothing but shock, as he also knew exactly what that jewel is, and what it means for him. This was a missing piece of the master emerald. There was no doubt about it, because Knuckles could feel the familiar energy.

**Amy**

Amy hated being trapped. She felt useless in that kind of state, and she hated being useless, as she was so sick of being looked at as useless so much in the past. Amy was older now, and she wanted to show that she was capable of being just as heroic as someone like Sonic. She couldn't however, if she was stuck in a cage.

Amy was smashing the bars with her hammer, trying to find a way out of such a confined room. She was pretty loud, and basically in emotional rage. "We've got to get out of here!" Amy screamed.

"Calm down sweety!" Rouge said sounding very annoyed. Rouge had to put up with Amy's loud hammer for awhile now right after Shadow left them. Rouge was very fed up, and could kick Amy into the wall a dozen times from the built up annoyance levels in her.

Amy finally stopped, breathing in and out. Amy tried to regain her energy, but she was in a state where she could actually pass out. "B-but, we have to get out of here!" she cried in desperation.

"I know, I want to get out of here as much as you do," Rouge said. "But you have to calm down, and think with me of a way to get out of here!"

Amy sat down listening to Rouge. She was right, she wasn't going to smash her way out of this situation. She had to think of something, and to do that, she has to work with someone she really despised. "B-but, I'm so confused Rouge," she said. "I mean, why would Shadow save us, and then trap us in here? More importantly, how in the world did Shadow survive that fall to Earth? For five years, I thought he was dead! And just where are we?"

Rouge didn't answer for a bit, as she was thinking of an answer to Amy's numerous questions. Rouge unfortunately didn't have any answers, she was just as confused about the situation as Amy was. So Rouge unfortunately said, "I know just about as much as you do. Believe me, I'm still shocked from that first time I saw the guy."

Amy sighed, she wanted answers now. And she didn't like not being able to do anything about it. "Are we ever going to get out and figure all of this out?" she asked.

"I don't know, but we need to just calm down, and think of something," Rouge said.

Amy nodded, and moved closer to Rouge, and they both started chatting with each other, trying to figure out any possible way to get out of this prison cell.

**Silver**

Back with Silver, he was still looking around for Vector. He had found Charmy and Espio, who were basically completely useless in his quest to look for answers. They seemed to be busy in their own matters. Didn't they know they were technically working for him? Silver didn't care at the moment though. He'd probably need the leader to get them back on track.

Silver felt like he was walking for hours though. He kept looking at every single room in this huge hospital, but none of the doors had Vector's name on it. Silver was running out of rooms to look at, he was starting to get worried that he wasn't going to find Vector. He had to find Vector, he had to get out of this hospital, he had to do what he came to this place for.

"Where could he be?" he asked.

Silver stopped however at the top floor, when he finally found a door that directly said Vector the Crocodile on it. Silver, being as impatient as he was, quickly opened the door, shouting, "Vector! Finally..."

But once Silver entered the room, he noticed that Vector wasn't there. Silver's face was filled with disappointment. Where could the green crocodile had run off to? Silver quickly exited the room, and kept looking for Vector, unfortunately just figuring out his search was nowhere near over.

Vector wasn't in the cafeteria eating food, he wasn't in some special room getting tests done, Silver couldn't seem to find the guy anywhere. Silver sighed at this annoying search. He had just returned to Vector's room after another long search, and Vector still was nowhere to be found in his room. Silver closed the door behind him, ready to continue the search.

But Silver looked at the name tag right next to the door, and he realized something he was quite surprised about. Vector's name...wasn't on there anymore. This room was no longer holding Vector as a patient.

"That's strange," Silver said.

**Shadow**

Shadow the hedgehog. A name that rings a lot of questions to minds of quite a few people at the moment. Most people will say this person is dead. But it turns out, this person is still alive. At least, that's what it looks like to the eye. Anyway, this hedgehog hasn't answered any questions, as he felt there really was no need to answer any.

He walked, he was going to go pay Amy and Rouge a second visit, but he had decided against that. He was recently called to the main room of wherever the place was. It seemed like the inside of an Egyptian pyramid, except, there was this strange feeling to it.

Shadow kept walking, noticing all the paintings on the walls around him. Wondering if he had ever been here before. He wondered why he even came to this place anyway. He wondered why he had saved those two girls. What was the importance of them? Why did he feel the need to save a girl he attacked a few minutes ago?

Despite the questions surrounding him, Shadow had some questions himself. He seemed to be suffering from amnesia. Well, slight amnesia at least. Shadow entered the room he was summoned to at last, as he wondered why he was there.

"You wanted to see me?" Shadow asked.

Shadow was looking at a chair. It was obviously some kind of man was sitting in it. The man chuckled, and slowly turned his chair around to face Shadow, which he had summoned. He finally turned around, and reveals that with the instantly recognizable mustache, it was no doubt the other person many questions surrounded as well. Dr. Eggman had summoned Shadow.

"Do you remember this place Shadow?" Eggman asked.

Shadow looked one more time at the room he was in. He suddenly had yet another flashback in his head, this time, of him talking to the doctor in this control room. How Eggman was telling him the end was near, and that he was going to go break the news to the heroes. Shadow nodded. "Yes, this is your base," Shadow said.

Eggman chuckled, and grinned. "Well Shadow, I have a mission for you," Eggman said.

"What is your mission then my master?" Shadow asked. Shadow had called Eggman his master when he was first awakened by him. Eggman was pleased he was being called that again. Very pleased.

"I need the chaos emeralds Shadow," Eggman said. "And only you can help me get them."

Shadow nodded, remembering exactly what the chaos emerald were. "And you will reveal to me answers to all of my questions? You will tell me who I am?"

Eggman nodded. "Of course Shadow, I care about you," Eggman said.

"Good, then I'll be happy to help," Shadow said, sealing the deal.

**Conclusion**

Whoever stole the master emerald, why did they let the master emerald shatter into pieces? Did they do it on purpose, or by accident? Will Amy and Rouge be able to escape their prison cell? Where in the world could Vector be? And why does Eggman need Shadow to collect the chaos emeralds? All this, on the next Desperate Hedgehogs.


	4. Four Searches

Hey guys, just wanna give a shoutout to Cstan and Kira for reading my story! I hope if there's anyone else reading, you all review eventually too. I love to hear all your feedback please. =D Alright, enjoy the fourth episode **Four Searches**.

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles had decided to stop worrying about Amy, Rouge, and the Chaotix and just continue pursuing what they needed to do. Sonic and Tails finding Eggman, and Knuckles finding the master emerald. Knuckles particularly gets a breakthrough in his search, when he finds a shattered piece of the Master Emerald.

Silver and the Chaotix have found themselves in this strange hospital after the bomb detonated. Well, at least most of the Chaotix, as Silver discovered at the end that Vector was no longer a patient.

Amy and Rouge find themselves prisoners after nearly dying in the Mystic Ruins base, due to an unexpected rescue from a hedgehog that all sorts of questions surrounded. Now the girls have to figure out the situation though and find a way out.

And lastly, Shadow was revealed to yet again, be taking orders from Dr. Eggman. Why he is taking orders though is unknown, but Dr. Eggman is after the chaos emeralds, and it isn't yet known why...

**Shadow**

Shadow the Hedgehog. Often called the anti-hero of the heroic Sonic the Hedgehog. And with good reason too. He had manipulated the evil genius Dr. Eggman into nearly destroying all mankind. But frankly, he didn't seem to be a villian either, since by the end, he had made a dramtic turn around and helped Sonic in his quest to stop the Space Colony Ark. It was a happy ending for everyone, except for Shadow himself, who was at least thought to be dead.

But now this black hedgehog was standing in front of Dr. Eggman, the mad scientist he was able to trick so easily. It's surprising yet not surprising that these two weren't fighting as soon as they reunited. Eggman hates to be made of fool of, but Shadow was also his only connection to his family's past. Dr. Eggman looked up to Professor Gerald very much, even after finding out he was a madman.

The two were in the control room of Eggman's once abandoned base in the desert. But after Eggman had escaped the authorities, the base had finally gotten back into action, and everything was still working perfectly, for the most part at least. You may think the doctor has an artistic side to him, seeing shapes of his face all around the base. Or maybe you'd call that very self-absorbed.

Eggman had just told Shadow he wanted the Chaos Emeralds, and Shadow accepted without any hesitation. Why exactly these two were working together is still unknown, but it seems like Shadow wants something from Dr. Eggman.

"Good Shadow, you can get started right away," Eggman said with a grin.

Shadow nodded, and was about to leave the room to get going. But before he did, he asked, "Master, why did I feel the need to rescue those two strangers?"

Eggman didn't exactly know how to answer that question, but with his large IQ, he was quick to find one and then said, "Un un un, first get me one Chaos Emerald and I'll start answering some questions!"

Shadow was a little annoyed that the doctor refused to answer his question, but he knew he had no choice, he needed answers to the current situation, and it seemed like only the doctor knew what those answers were. "You're right, sorry, but um, do you have an idea where the first Chaos Emerald is?" Shadow asked.

Eggman's smile was more obvious then ever. "I'm glad you asked. I've been working on something that will be able to assist you in finding the Chaos Emeralds. E-123 Omega, report here at once!"

Suddenly, a robot came entering the door behind Shadow. It was a pretty big robot, colored black and red just like Gamma was. But this robot looked much stronger, nothing about the robot looked very cute at all. "At your service, Dr. Eggman," he said.

"It's time for your first mission to begin Omega," said Eggman. "I've been working on you for far too long, so it's time to see you be put to good use. You contain an emerald radar inside of you, I want you to go with Shadow and find me a Chaos Emerald. Failure is not an option, they're key to my plan!"

Omega nodded by bowing down, as he didn't actually have a head. His head seemed to be the same thing as his tummy, if that makes any sense at all. "Mission recieved, will begin progress immediately," he said.

"Good, Omega, wait outside the base for Shadow, when he comes, begin your search immediately," said Eggman.

Omega heard the message loud and clear and immediately exited the room, as Shadow watched his legs taking each step they took. The robot did seem intimidating, but it was a robot, robots don't have minds of their own, he would be fine with it.

"So Shadow, when you're ready, head outside and join Omega and begin the search," said Eggman.

Shadow nodded, and walked out of the room leaving Eggman to his doings. Shadow wasn't just ready to go on such a journey though. He first had something that was on his mind before he entered Eggman's control room that he had to take care of.

**Amy**

In another part of the base, there were two prisoners, both female, just letting time go by as they were stuck in a very small and dark prison cell. It sucked being stuck in a place with no way out, especially to these two girls, who absolutely needed all the fresh air they could get. These are two girls they don't belong in cages at all, Amy and Rouge.

The two were sitiing with their legs crossed, trying to think of ways to get out of the cell, after Amy's little tantrum that was with slamming the metal bars with her hammer. She was a wild girl, wild girls didn't like to be trapped. Unless of course, they're saved by their favorite blue hero.

"Maybe Sonic will come save us," said Amy, souding a little more hopeful now that Sonic had returned to her mind.

"Oh please, they probably think we're dead," Rouge said, sounding very annoyed at hearing Sonic's name.

"Don't say that!" Amy shouted in a very angry tone.

"It's not far from the truth though," said Rouge. "I mean, if Shadow is telling the truth and he saved us from that bomb, they probably can only assume that we didn't make it out in time."

Amy was about to shout something insulting, but she thought about Rouge's words, and then sighed. Rouge was right, they probably think that they were dead, if her and Rouge were ever going to get out, they had to do it themselves, or maybe ask Shadow a million times. "I just wish we knew where we were," Amy said.

Nope, Rouge and Amy still couldn't figure out that they were at a base they were standing in five years ago. But it had been five years, they didn't really feel the need to keep this base in their heads. But they had to figure it out eventually, they definitely were there before.

Suddenly, the girls could hear footsteps coming towards their cell again. They didn't sound too different from the ones they heard before with Shadow, and since Shadow was the only person they knew was in this base, they could only assume it was him again.

And they were right, as Shadow was finally seeable in their eyes, and he then stood in front of the cell, just looking at the two people he had saved from an inevitable death.

"Hey," said Shadow.

"Shadow...," Amy said.

"How are you two doing at the moment?"

"Not bad, except that we're kinda trapped," said Rouge sounding very annoyed.

Shadow chuckled surprisingly, and he didn't really know why, but Rouge's attitude seemed familiar. "Can you two answer some questions for me?" he asked.

Amy and Rouge were a bit surprised at Shadow's question. Rouge quickly answered though when she said, "Maybe if you tell us where we are, and let us go."

"Well...then nevermind," said Shadow. Shadow then started to walk away from the cell, leaving Rouge looking pretty annoyed.

But Amy had a different plan, as she ran to the bars and grabbed them with her hands and tried to put her head through the space between two of them. She then shouted, "Shadow, wait!"

Shadow stopped, and turned around to Amy, who's head was outcide of the cell.

"Shadow please, don't you remember us?" asked Amy. Amy sounded desperate, as if she thought this was the only way to get out of the base, which seemed to be true in their minds. "Don't you remember? I told you something that made you change your mind about mankind, and then you went and saved the world with Sonic! Why are you trapping us here now? I thought we were your friends."

Shadow's face suddenly had shown a ton of confusion. He remembered getting that flashback of Amy telling him something very important. Did he save these two girls because he knew they had answers to his question? It was too bad they weren't going to answer any unless he let them escape. Shadow shrugged Amy's comment off his shoulders then, and just exited the room like he had planned, leaving Amy falling to the ground with her head down.

**Silver**

It was a very strange hospital indeed. When Silver the Hedgehog entered the room of the Chaotix Detective Agency leader, he came out and saw that his name was no longer next to the door. He didn't hear anyone coming to take the name off, so unless they were tip-toeing the name seemed to have vanished. Silver kept looking at the now empty name-tag, wondering if Vector's name was still there somewhere.

But, Vector's name wasn't there, Vector was no longer assigned to this room. Was Vector assigned to a different room? Silver didn't know, but he knew that something fishy was no doubt going on. He didn't know exactly what it was, but he didn't like that this was pausing his mission to find Eggman.

"Maybe he checked out or something," Silver said. "Maybe I'll go ask that nurse." Silver was referring to the nice nurse that was talking to him when he had first woken up. Silver thought he might find her somewhere on the first floor, so he quickly got to the stairs and began running down.

He finally reaches the first floor, and sees the counter near the front door, and the nurse was over there doing some paperwork. Silver walked over to the nurse, and then said, "Hey there."

The nurse looked up to see Silver's face. His eyes looking for her eyes. The nurse smiled, and then said, "Oh, hey Silver! It's good to see you on your feet hun!"

Silver nodded smiling back. There was something about the nurse that was really sweet, that made you feel like she was really on your side no matter what. Silver immediately said, "Thank you. I'm feeling pretty good at the moment. Hey um, do you know where Vector the Crocodile may be? He's a patient here but I can't seem to find him anywhere."

The nurse looked at Silver pretty weirdly, as if she was a bit weirded out by what Silver had asked. She quickly responded though by saying, "I'm sorry Silver, but there's no one named Vector in this hospital."

Silver's face suddenly showed a sense of confusion. He knew if he, Espio, and Charmy were in this hospital, Vector had to be in this hospital too. "But, I saw a door with his name on it before, but then later on, the name tag changed and there was no name on it. Did Vector check out or something?"

The nurse's face continued to show a sense of weirded outness. It's as if she thought Silver was spouting out something crazy. "Silver are you okay? There was never someone named Vector the Crocodile checked into this hospital."

"What? B-but, I saw the nametag on the door, his name was on it! Vector the Crocodile was in this hospital not too long ago." Silver seemed to be a little frustrated at this point. Was his mind playing tricks with him, or was there something even stranger going on?

The nurse's face suddenly had shown much worry, as if she thought there was something wrong with the person she was speaking to. She confirmed this when she said, "Oh my, these must be some side effects," she said. "We must take you back to your room immediately and do a check up."

"Oh um, no thanks, I actually just wanted to check out," Silver said, who didn't seem to know what he was saying due to such a surprising comment.

"NO!" shouted the nurse. "You aren't going anywhere until we get you checked up!"

Silver was immensely shocked by how such a nice and pretty nurse turned so aggressive so soon. Was this really some side effect to whatever damage was dealt to him, or was something even bigger going on?

**Sonic**

Everyone in this universe had at least heard of the Master Emerald. Its great powers that could completely help or destroy the universe. But the power is not easily accessible. At least, the full potential isn't. No, if you really wanted control of that unlimited energy that could completely stop the Chaos Emeralds from doung anything, you had to be one echidna, which was Knuckles.

Unfortunately, since Knuckles was the only one that was able to really use the Master Emerald's energy to its full potential, he's a popular person to try to trick into giving information. Luckily he had never given such information, and the secret to really harnessing the Master Emerald's power is still a secret.

So, people may take an alternative to reaching true power, which is to steal the Master Emerald so that it could not stop the Chaos Emeralds, which on the other hand was very easy to absorb power from. Sometimes, even shattering the emerald. This is all Knuckles could think of, when he found a missing piece of the Master Emerald.

He stood in front of the bush outside Tails' lab in the Mystic Ruins with Sonic, and they both stared at the Master Emerald piece, which Knuckles was now holding. Knuckles at least knew what the state of the Master Emerald was, but who did it, and why?

"There's no doubt about it, this is a piece of the Master Emerald," Knuckles said.

"Now why would someone go and steal the emerald, then shatter it?" asked Sonic,

"Beats me," said Knuckles. "Whoever did this though is going to meet my fist!"

Sonic chuckled, always seeming to laugh whenever Knuckles showed his anger. The Master Emerald was usually a good place to start if you wanted to piss the echidna off. "Why is that your answer to everything?" asked Sonic.

Knuckles was in rage, and didn't really appreciate Sonic's smart comment. "This isn't a joke you idiot!" Knuckles said. "Someone has the nerve to not only steal the Master Emerald, but smash it into pieces as well! I must find the colprit as soon as possible!"

Suddenly, the two heard something coming up behind them, and they saw that it was Tails, who had just exited the lab, looking like he was wondering what all the commotion was about. "You guys are really loud, what are you talking about?" Tails asked.

"Guess what we found Tails," Sonic said, as Knuckles showed Tails the Master Emerald piece.

Tails' eyes lit up, as he definitely didn't expect to see a master emerald piece sitting there right next to his lab. "Woah, is that what I think it is?" he asked.

Knuckles nodded, then said, "Yes, it's a missing piece of the Master Emerald. Whoever stole it shattered the Master Emerald for whatever reason!"

"Whoever did this, why would they waste their time to steal the darn thing and then just break it?" asked Sonic. "I guess though, they could just be really clumsy."

"Well, it's kinda scary that a thief might've been near my lab while we were gone," said Tails. "I mean, what if they stole anything I made as well?" Tails' face suddenly showed alot of worry, you could say he was the type of guy that could get very attached to things he created, kind of like a father and son relationship.

"Heh heh heh," said Sonic. "Don't worry Tails, I'm sure with your mind you'd just be able to make it again."

Tails turned around and faced Sonic actually looking very stern, then said, "It's not as simple as you think, you have no idea what I've been inventing these past five years Sonic."

Sonic was taken a bit by surprise, as Tails would usually always laugh at his little jokes. At least, that's what the Tails he knew five years ago would do. Sonic shrugged the comment off though, and then just said, "So, not only do we have Eggman on our minds, but we also have some guy that cared about the Master Emerald enough to want to steal it. And for what we know, they could've shattered it on purpose or by accident. Sounds like another adventure guys!"

Knuckles was pretty annoyed by Sonic's laid back attitude, like he always was. He showed it by saying, "This isn't all fun and games Sonic. If someone wanted the Master Emerald it's because they know it has enough power to stop the Chaos Emeralds. And if they wanted to shatter it, it's because they plan to use the Chaos Emeralds and don't want the Master Emerald to get in the way. Maybe Eggman is the one that did this, the person you two happen to be looking for as well."

Tails suddenly remembered another reason why he had come out to chat with the two guys. He had something to tell them, which was, "Oh, that reminds me guys, get into my lab, I just remembered something incredibly important that could lead us to Eggman!"

Tails then began to run into his lab, and Sonic and Knuckles followed shortly.

**Amy**

It seemed like Amy and Rouge didn't have very good luck for awhile, considering the fact that not only were they stuck in prison in a place they just could not recognize, but they could not even get any answers from someone they had considered a hero before. But then again, it was Shadow, no one but Eggman seemed to had known enough about the black hedgehog.

Amy and Rouge were both lying on the floor, trying to think of ways to turn their luck around, which would be by actually getting out of prison and out into the free open world so that they could figure out this mess. But so far, they had come up with nothing, and it felt like forever since Shadow had last visited them.

"Rouge, thought of anything yet?" Amy asked, sounding very tired and lazy actually.

Rouge sighed, sounding just as tired and lazy as Amy, then said, "Nothing yet. And I'm getting bored feeling like we're being trapped here for eternity. Aren't we at least supposed to get something to eat? My ideal way to die isn't starvation."

"I can't believe you're thinking about food at a time like this," Amy said sounding annoyed. "But then again, you are very self-absorbed."

"Wow, since when did little miss sunshine use words like that?" asked Rouge, sounding pretty mocking like actually.

Amy yelped a big fat ha to Rouge, as she knew exactly what to say in response. "It's called growing up Rouge, which is something maybe someone like you should consider."

Rouge girnned, thinking Amy's comment as quite amateurish at trying to be a decent insult. She responds by saying, "Says the one that can't let go of a crush on a guy that's probably not going to settle down for anyone."

That comment really hit Amy deep in her heart. She didn't like to be called a child just because of her enormous crush that she knew she couldn't let go of yet. Even after five years of total rejection, she still loved that blue hedgehog as if he were her true soul mate. Fire raged in her eyes, she faced Rouge, and then shouted, "Who do you think you are? Love is something that cannot be helped, it isn't some childish thing! Then again, you probably don't know anything about it knowing your lying nature."

Rouge then said, "Believe me honey, I do," knowing exactly what she was referring to. "Why are you being so defensive? Face it Amy, your little crush on Sonic is kinda hopeless if he's ignored ya for five years."

"Well you don't know that!" Amy shouted. She sighed and laid back on the ground. "Gosh, staying in this cell with you is making me go insane."

"I think I can see that," Rouge said. "Don't worry, it's all making me pretty cranky myself, we've got to find a way out of here." Rouge was right, who knows what will become of Amy and Rouge the longer they are to stay in such a confined area.

**Silver**

That must've sucked. Feeling like you were in tip top shape, only to be told that your feelings were wrong and then rushed back into the room to do extreme testing. Silver knew there was nothing wrong with him though, and these tests that were being performed felt very weird to him. He just felt this certain sense of sleepiness as whatever that was being inserted into him kept going in.

Silver had a bad feeling about this now. He was getting more and more sleepy. And there didn't seem to be a way to fight it. He stared at the nurse, who seemed to be staring at him with much worry. But to Silver, there seemed to be something odd about her face. It just seemed, well, you could say Silver never thought someone like her could even show worry, let alone so much of it. How long had she known Silver now? About an hour at this point? There just seemed to be something...odd about her.

However, Silver had no time to think about it all, as he couldn't help his eye lids close. He tried to resist, and it actually seemed like he might've been able to stay awake for a little while.

But then the nurse said, "Don't worry sweety, you're safe with me, please let us help you."

Help you, help you, help you, help you, help you. The words kept repeating themselves in Silver's head. He couldn't control himself at this point, his eye lids finally closed, and he appeared to finally be giving into whatever was being inserted into him.

"Yes yes, rest, that's what you need, rest," said the nurse. She then slowly walked out of the room, and then closed the door behind her.

If something was going on, then Silver had basically failed to try to resist whatever it was, and now he seemed to be sound asleep. All hope was lost, Silver had fallen into whatever clutches he had fallen into.

At least, that's what they thought.

Silver's eyes opened, and took out all the appliances hooked up to him. He seemed pretty tired, but not tired enough to have actually fallen asleep like what was thought. He slowly got off his bed, trying to gain his balance. He almost fell to the ground, the stuff inserted into him was pretty effective, but it couldn't get Silver completely, as he was awake, barely.

"I-I know what this is," Silver said slowly. "And it isn't any good."

Silver seemed more convinced then ever that this hospital wasn't exactly a hospital. Something about what was injected into him seems to have led him to this conclusion. He had to tell Espio and Charmy. He had to get out of this place. He had to find out what they had done with Vector. He had to be the hero. The Chaotix were going to pay him when this was all done.

He slowly walked up to the door, and slowly opened it, hoping no one would hear or see the door opening. He slowly put his head out the door, to see if anyone was in the hallway. He looked to the left, nothing there. He looked to the right, nothing there.

"I've got...to tell Espio and Charmy," Silver said. He slowly exited the door and began walking, well, barely walking.

**Sonic**

Tails' lab was still a shocking sight to Sonic and Knuckles. But then again, it definitely was the first time they saw the lab be as huge as that. It definitely wasn't the lab they knew before during their days battling Chaos. They could only assume that the more years that past, the smarter that Tails gets.

Tails was standing in front of his computer. He seemed to be trying to get something up to show Sonic and Knuckles. Sonic and Knuckles were waiting, wondering what Tails' important news was.

"Okay guys, let me ask you something," Tails began to say. "Do you guys remember another one of Eggman's old bases we hadn't investigated yet?"

Sonic and Knuckles were thinking, Eggman had the ability to create massive bases in such a short time. It wouldn't be a surprise if they forgot about a base that Eggman could possibly be hiding in. But, nothing really came into their minds, so they both shook your heads.

"Oh, I don't blame you guys for forgetting, we only actually were at this certain base for a short time," Tails said. "But it's the most recent one we saw! Eggman's base in the desert, when he was working with Shadow!"

Sonic and Knuckles suddenly remembered exactly what that place was. How could all three of them forget about such a base? Especially since it was the most recent one. But then, they remembered why they didn't even consider the base, why they didn't even remember it.

"Tails, didn't that base get engulfed during some desert storm three years ago?" asked Sonic.

Tails nodded. "Yes, that's why we all didn't remember it," Tails said. "The base was reported to be buried in the sand, and it was impossible to find, as searching through sand is very hard, even with the technology we have today. But guys, this is Eggman we're talking about. He may have possibly found a way to get back into the base. It's our only clue left."

Sonic smiled, pretty happy about what Tails had discovered. He gave him a thumbs up, and then said, "Nice work Tails! It'll be tough trying to search through such a large desert though, it actually kinda slows me down running on sand."

Tails wasn't very into the idea of searching endlessly through the desert himself. What their task was was basically digging up an entire desert in search for this base that was a very small part of the entire desert. But Tails, being the genius he was, had a solution. "That's why we're lucky that I found the exact coordinates of where the base was on the computer. All we gotta do is basically get to these coordinates and really just start digging."

Sonic faced Knuckles and then said, "Well, it's a good thing we got ourselves quite the digger here!"

"What, me?" asked Knuckles.

"Alright guys, let's get going, I'll fly us over to the spot on the Tornado 3," Tails said.

As Tails was walking over into a different room, it suddenly occured to Sonic. Tornado 3? Did Tails really make another plane? He wondered what it looked like, and what it could do. Was it as fast as him? Sonic would soon find out, as Tails gave them a hand gesture a little later to come into the room and get onto the plane.

Sonic and Knuckles entered the ginormous room. But it was actually pretty dark, none of the lights were on. So they couldn't see a thing. This was unusual, but maybe Tails wanted to surprise them that much more.

"Hey Tails, can you turn the lights on in here?" Sonic asked.

"Sure," Tails said, with the lights immediately going on right after.

The Tornado 3 was huge, very huge. It wasn't as huge as let's say, the Egg Carrier, but it was still pretty freakin' huge. It was painted white, with the words Tonado 3 nicely painted on top of the white. The shape of the plane seemed alot more complex, and there were all sorts of guns on the plane as well. It had two seats inside of it, which was one extra seat then the previous Tornado.

Sonic and Knuckles really had no idea Tails' abilities in technology have gotten this advance. They knew he was a genius, but he never actually made anything that would absolutely amaze them. This reunion seriously brought lots of surprises.

"Woah!" Sonic said.

"Impressed guys?" asked Tails. "Let's get going!"

Tails and Knuckles hopped into the plane seats, while Sonic took his usual spot on the outside. Although, it seemed a little more uncomfortable, as it didn't seem like Tails made this plane with Sonic riding on it in mind, strangely.

Slowly, the garage door in front of the plane opened. The plane's engine turned on, and fire started blasting out from behind, as the plane got ready to take off. As Tails shouted, "here we go", the plane flies out of the lab, and heads for the desert.

**Shadow**

A Chaos Emerald was no ordinary object. It contained huge amounts of power, that only so few could actually absorb and control. Chaos Emeralds were not to be played with, especially in the wrong hands. Dr. Eggman certainly didn't think he had the wrong hands, as he had ordered Shadow and his newest robot Omega to retrieve them. But many people in the world would obviously disagree, Dr. Eggman didn't care.

Shadow and Omega were walking around in the shadows in the sub-urban area of Station Square. Omega's radar had led them to this area first. They both hadn't exactly been to this area. But Omega's radar had come in handy, so all they were doing is just following the radar.

The both of them were pretty silent on the trip so far, but Shadow wondered if Omega would be able to answer any of his questions himself. Omega was a robot of Eggman's afterall, maybe Omega had some of Eggman's memories. But he couldn't just outright ask a stranger he guessed. But what did he have to lose.

"That emerald radar is really useful," Shadow said, trying to break the ice. "Do you know how Eggman built it?"

Omega faced Shadow as they were both walking, and then said, "Information unavailable."

Shadow knew Omega was a robot, but it just seemed very weird how he talked like one so much. Did this robot have no mind like all of Eggman's robots did? Omega must be a very powerful robot if he can be mindless but can find the Chaos Emeralds. Or perhaps Eggman made Shadow go with Omega because he knew Omega could not do it alone. Although, Omega seemed to be doing pretty well so far.

"So, what do you think of the doctor?" Shadow asked.

Omega ignored Shadow's question, making Shadow believe even more that Omega was just a mindless robot. Shadow didn't think he'd get anything out of him, so he just kept his mouth shut for the rest of the trip.

The walking in silence wouldn't last much longer though, as the two finally stumbled upon what they had been looking for. A Chaos Emerald was right in front of them. It was laying on the bush trying to blend in with the surroundings with its green color. But the emerald was far too shiny to not notice. Quite a strange place for an emerald to be at actually, where there were so many people, but it looked like no one seemed to come to this spot very much anyway.

"That's a Chaos Emerald," Shadow said.

Omega nodded in agreement, and took the emerald and put it inside himself. Omega then said, "Now, let us report back to the base to store this emerald."

Shadow nodded, and Omega began to walk back the direction they came from. But before Shadow followed his footsteps, he heard something strange. It was a cry. It didn't sound like tears of joy at all, but tears of pain. Shadow quickly turned around to see what the commotion was. He knew the way back to the base, he'd catch up to Omega later. He ran up to the bush in front of him and hid in it to observe who was making such sad sounds.

What he saw with his eyes was a young orange rabbit and her pet chao crying into their mother's tummy. The orange rabbit's face was in her mother's as her mother tried to comfort her, and the pet chao too. Yep, it was Cream the Rabbit and her pet chao Cheese, along with Vanilla, their guardian. Shadow had never met these three before, yet the crying was enough to get his attention. He listened in.

"Oh, it's okay dear," said Vanilla. "I know Amy was a great friend to you two, I'm sure she's out there somewhere."

"B-but, you didn't see the bomb mom," said Cream, who was still trying to fight her tears enough to speak. "It was just so huge, and if Amy didn't escape the base, it really is likely that she's dead."

"Oh stop it Cream. I'm sure the bomb was pretty big, but remember, Amy is a fighter. She's taught you to be tougher then you were before. If she can do that, I'm sure she's out there somewhere just trying to get to you as soon as possible."

Cream's tears seemed to lesson, her mother really was encouraging. "Y-you think so mom?"

"I know so."

Shadow knew that Vanilla was right. Amy Rose was still alive. If only he could tell them, and stop the crying. But he mustn't show himself. The doctor told him that the best thing to do was to remain undercover, and with no one else to trust, Shadow agreed already.

**Amy**

Amy and Rouge haven't really talked to each other much after their little verbal fight. They just needed some space. It was too bad that they wouldn't be getting any anytime soon. The two were stuck with each other for who knows how long, and there's only so much they can take.

Amy suddenly thought of someone she hadn't thought about since she had woken up in here. And that was her best friend in the whole wide world, Cream, with her pet chao Cheese. She knew that the two of them wouldn't take her missing very well, and now a sense of worry struck her head.

"I hope Cream and Cheese are okay," she said. "They must be really sad that I'm missing."

Rouge heard what Amy's supposedly self comment was, then she asked, "What is it now?"

Amy was still mad at Rouge. Amy did still feel very negative feelings towards her, and she was determined eternal life with her in prison wasn't going to change that. "I'm just worrying about my friends, nothing of your concern," Amy said.

Amy was feeling more and more worried about Cream as the seconds past. She knew that Cream wasn't the strongest person in the world, but Amy did help her grow stronger as the years have passed since they first met accidently. Amy thought of how she told Cream everything, and how Cream told her everything, and how cute Cream's chao was. Cream, is she okay?

Amy couldn't stand it, she felt like she was responsible to make sure Cream was alright. She didn't want to be the cause of Cream pausing her life. Amy needed to get out _now_. "Oh my gosh, I need to get out of here!" Amy shouted.

Rouge was a bit startled by Amy's outburst, thinking that she was done with that phase. Apparently though, there was no end to Amy tantrums. Rouge had to get out now too, she couldn't stand another Amy tantrum. "Shut it!" shouted Rouge. "Gosh, not another of your tantrums please. I was having this perfect daydream about my jewels back home if you don't mind."

Amy then turned to Rouge and said, "Don't you have anyone you actually care about besides your precious jewels? At least I have a living being I need to be there for."

"Oh believe me Amy, there's more to me then jewels," Rouge surprisingly said.

"Hmm, how so?" Amy asked.

"That's strictly confidential," Rouge said with a giggle at the end.

"Hmph, you're such a terrible liar," Amy said, coming to the conclusion Rouge was lying about having someone to care about.

"Believe what you want to believe," Rouge said. Rouge laid back at the ground and was about to close her eyes and do some more daydreaming. But before she closed her eyes, she noticed something on the cieling she hadn't noticed before. She suddenly stood back up, and tried to get a better look at the ceiling, but it was just too dark to see it clearly.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked, since Rouge wasn't the type to do something so random.

"The ceiling," Rouge said. "There's something on it, but I can't see it."

"Well, you can climb can't ya? Go climb up there and get a closer look."

Amy actually gave a great idea thoguht Rouge, so Rouge flew up to the ceiling and stuck onto it. She realized that what she was looking at, most of it was covered in this unusual material. Rouge had her gloves on, so she wasn't afraid of anything disgusting. She started tearing the material off.

"Ew, what do you think you're doing?" Amy meanwhile was not fond of the stuff falling off the ceiling. She was wearing a sleeveless dress and the disgusting material was getting on her arms. Amy brushed it all off and tried to find a safe spot in the cell.

Rouge was almost finished though. She finally took all the material off to reveal what Rouge wanted to see. Rouge's eyes suddenly opened up, as she suddenly found a piece of information that could really benefit them both.

"Why didn't I realize this before?" asked Rouge.

"What?" asked Amy, who then looked up at the ceiling herself. Then, Amy's eyes opened up just as wide, as she knew exactly what Rouge was talking about. Rouge was right, why didn't they realize this before? The ceiling had a picture of an Eggman symbol. This was the old Eggman base that was thought to have been buried by a sand storm.

**Sonic**

The desert was a very hot place. Staying out here for too long would probably be a pretty bad thing, unless you were in an area that was air-conditioned 24/7. Nothing was going to bring down these three though, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, who all had a goal in their mind coming into this area, which was to find Dr. Eggman. Sonic and Tails were asked to bring the doctor back to prison, and Knuckles just had a strong feeling Eggman was responsible for the Master Emerald being shattered.

The plane was flying pretty fast. It wasn't Super Sonic fast, but it was pretty fast. It definitely beat running on the sand. Tails' piloting skills seemed to have definitely improved since Sonic last saw him flew. He was basically starstruck at everytime Tails had been doing so far. Who knew the fox had grown up so much?

"We're here," Tails suddenly said interrupting Sonic's thoughts. The plane landed smoothly on the sand. There weren't any ancient ruins or cities anywhere near where they were. It was just an endless area of sand. Nothing else but sand, and the unbearable heat. But the three were going to find that Eggman even if it's the last thing they do.

The three of them got out of the plane, and looked around at all the sand. It was such an enormous place, they had no idea how they were going to find that base.

"I hope you guys aren't expecting me to dig all this sand up," Knuckles said, which he had every right to say seeing all that sand.

"Don't worry Knuckles, I'm sure if we all just dig into this sand we'll find something!" Sonic said.

"No, that's a horrible idea Sonic," Tails said. "With all that sand getting into your body, you'll probably die out here," Tails said sounding very annoyed. "Don't you know that? What we're going to do is try to find a secret entrance to the base. If Eggman truly is here, all we have to do is find a secret entrance."

"Well, sure Tails," Sonic said, a little surprised by Tails' disagreement.

Tails nodded and said, "Good. I'm going to go get this scanner I took with us in the plane, you two just start walking around here and see if you can find anything without killing yourselves." Tails then ran back towards the plane, while Sonic and Knuckles began to explore.

"Geez, did you two get in a fight or something?" Knuckles asked, noticing Tails' attitude.

"Huh, what do ya mean?" asked Sonic.

"Like, last time I was with you guys, you two were totally in-sync. What happened?"

Sonic unfortunately didn't know the answer to the question. But he didn't think there was much of a problem himself. He just thought that Tails well, grew up was all. Grew up into more of a jerk that didn't laugh at any of his jerks, but grew up. "Eh, I think you're over analyzing things Knuckles," Sonic said, even though he knew that was a blatant lie.

**Silver**

He could barely stand, and he certainly didn't want to get caught by that nurse, but he had to see his new friends. He had to find out what was really going on. This substance that was inserted into Silver was something very bad, he knew it. He knew that it was no way something that was supposed to help you heal. He knew that it was a poison, to try to put you to sleep for life. He knew the effects may last for a long time with only a little of it inside him, but he was able to walk, he had to do something. He had to get out of this hospital.

He slowly walked up the stairs, trying to reach the floor Espio was on. Silver couldn't believe how slow he was going. He couldn't believe it had become such a struggle to get up these stairs. He wish he could just use his powers and fly to the next floor, but he felt like his powers were wiped out. That poison really did it for him.

But eventually, he finally made it up a floor, and didn't waste anytime to get to Espio's door. No one was around thankfully, so he entered the room, and saw both Espio and Charmy there. Espio was still meditating, and Charmy was playing video games.

"There you guys are," Silver said slowly.

"Hi Silver!" Charmy said while still keeping his eyes on the TV. "What's up?"

"Can't you two leave a chameleon at peace?" asked Espio. "Meditating would be much easier if you both were to leave the room."

"W-we have to get out," Silver suddenly said. "We have to leave this place NOW."

"Why?" asked Charmy. "This place rocks Silver! I can't get these video games anywhere else!"

"And the peace I've been able to obtain in here, it actually is a great place to train as a ninja for me," Espio said.

Silver wished he didn't have to convince them to leave the place, as he was pretty tired. But it looked like he had to try his best. It seemed strange they didn't notice how tired he was. "G-guys, have you seen Vector at all?"

"Not really," Charmy said. "And who cares?"

Silver's ears didn't fool him. Silver did not expect Charmy to say that at all about his leader, who he had probably spent alot of time with. "What do you mean you don't care?" Silver asked, with a little more energy due to the shock.

"Like yeah, who cares Silver?" Charmy asked. "Infact, let's stay at this hospital forever! It's free and fun!"

Espio grinned while his eyes still stayed shut. He then said, "I actually agree. I've never actually been to such an amazing facility before. I don't see the harm in staying."

"WHAT?" shouted Silver. Both of their comments woke Silver right up, as not only were they not suspicious about anything this hospital is doing, but they actually were suggesting to stay at the hospital forever. At least Silver was now finally awake, but things just got even stranger.

**Conclusion**

Questions are still there to answer, not to mention some new ones as well. What's Eggman's plans with the Chaos Emeralds? What will Amy and Rouge do now that they know exactly where they are? Will Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles find the base? And what will Silver do now that he knows what the hospital truly is? All this on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs.


	5. Meeting at the Base

Fifth episode, called **Meeting at the Base**.

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Amy and Rouge continued to stay stuck in the little prison cell. But they had actually discovered by the end that they were in Doctor Eggman's other base in the desert, despite the assumption that it was buried under the sand in a sand storm 3 years ago.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles reach the desert to look for Eggman, but something seems to be off about the trio, and Knuckles seemed to be getting an idea of what it could be.

Shadow found a Chaos Emerald along with Omega, and is now returning to the base to give it to Eggman, in hopes that he gets some answers. But will observing Cream crying about Amy change Amy and Rouge's fate?

Silver discovered the truth about the hospital, nearly being poisoned in a weak attempt. How will he try to convince Espio and Charmy that they must leave the hospital? And where exactly is Vector?

**Silver**

Silver knew he was used to hearing shocking things, but he still did not expect to hear his new friends, Espio and Charmy, to actually even consider staying in this evil trap disguised as a hospital. Silver had to convince them somehow that that was the wrong decision. More importantly, they were supposed to be helping him on a mission.

Espio and Charmy looked like they meant every word they had just said, which just amazed Silver even more. Why would anyone ever want to live in a hospital forever? More imporantly, what makes them think they can even do that?

"What do you mean you wanna stay here forever?" Silver asked very angerily.

Espio suddenly stopped meditating, too bothered by Silver's suddenly loud voice. He got off the bed and walked a little bit closer to Silver, and this time spoke with his eyes open. "Your loud voice is unecessary. Please be gone and let me get back to my meditating."

Silver didn't care what Espio said, he was going to get it through their thick heads that this hospital is not what it seems. "No, I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life! Why would you even think of staying at a hospital forever? Not only would it cost you tons of money, but also, you're around tons of patients everyday that are literally dying. And what makes you even think you can do that?"

Espio sighed, thinking Silver was being pretty ignorant. He then replied though by saying, "The ideas of staying here forever occured to me and Charmy after that treated us and fully recovered us. This hospital is like paradise Silver. If we were to stay out there, we would've lost our house within' weeks. The nurse even said we could stay here forever free of charge."

Silver shook his head in disgust, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Don't you think that's odd? Why would a hospital ever let you stay here forever, free of charge at that? And do you guys even know what happened to Vector? Does that NOT arouse any type of suspicion?"

Charmy suddenly paused his video game, and flew up to Espio's side, looking like he had something to say about what Silver had just said. "I don't care where Vector is, he's a jerk anyway," Charmy said. "Always treating me like I'm some six year old, but I'm alot older now!"

Espio was sick of this conversation, so he decided to say, "Silver, if you don't leave now, we will call hospital security and force you to leave."

Silver couldn't believe his ears. These two had a job to do, and it was to help him find Eggman. And they couldn't do that if they were stuck in a hospital. Blah, who needs them anyway? Silver will just go find the doctor himself. So Silver was about to exit the room, actually thinking he at least did not have to pay them. But suddenly, the alarm began to sound. And red lights were flashing everywhere.

"EMERGENCY! PATIENT 103 MISSING!"

Uh oh, that was the number on his door, looks like they found out he had escaped.

**Shadow**

The desert was as hot as ever. No one in their right mind would ever make their home here. Well, except Eggman of course, who has a base right under it that was at least five years old. But it wasn't used for five years ever since he was trapped in prison, but he was back, and started to get the base back into shape one month ago.

But recently, a black hedgehog was awakened, and he immediately came to the doctor's base to help in his operations. Dr. Eggman never seemed too shocked that Shadow came, as if he expected Shadow to come to him. Shadow doesn't know why he knew he had to come to the doctor, but with nowhere else to really go to, he's forced to basically just do what the doctor says to see if it gets him anywhere. Shadow is very hesitant on trusting anyone at the moment.

He and Omega were walking in the desert, getting back to Eggman's base to turn the emerald in to him. Yes, they had found a Chaos Emerald, which will fulfill Eggman's request. They both didn't know exactly what Eggman was up to, but if the Chaos Emeralds are involved, it was obviously going to be something big.

"We should be very close to the base," Shadow said.

The two continued walking in the desert, the sand slowly seeping into Shadow's shoes when he began to sink into the sand. Shadow could go fast, but he wasn't in the mood to leave Omega behind. He thought it was a better idea to stay with Omega, incase he ran into any trouble. Omega was holding the Chaos Emerald after all. But it was inside his steel armor body.

Shadow suddenly heard something though that was ahead of them. There wasn't supposed to be anyone in this area, except underground of course where the base was. But no, someone was here on top of the base. And Shadow knew this base could not be discovered.

"Stop," Shadow said as he held Omega back. "Omega, someone is there. Can you zoom in and see who it is?"

Omega nodded, and changed to goggle mode. He began to zoom in to what was ahead of him. He kept zooming in more and more, until finally, he saw three figures looking around the area. "Subjects are named, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles Prower, and Knuckles the Echidna," Omega reported.

Shadow somehow knew that hedgehog wasn't going to be out of his life forever. But it was already so soon that they could've encountered each other again. He knew Eggman did not want anyone snooping around, and knowing that hedgehog was already snooping in the Mystic Ruins base, Shadow knew it was not gonna be good if Sonic found his way into the doctor's real base.

"Omega, we need to contact Dr. Eggman NOW," Shadow said sternly.

Omega nodded and quickly changed his right hand into a speaker of some sorts. A few seconds later, Eggman voice could be heard, who said, "Shadow, Omega, what is it?"

"Master, there seems to be a few unwanted intruders above the base," said Shadow. "Omega says they're Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles Prower, and Knuckles the Echidna."

"Blah," Eggman said in annoyance. "Use the other entrance that's further away from them, I'll take care of those pesky rats! By the way, have you two retrieved the Chaos Emerald?"

Shadow nodded, then said, "Yes, we have."

"Good good," Eggman said in his devil like manner.

**Sonic**

In another area in the desert, three people were beginning their search to find Dr. Eggman. Two of them were asked to take him back to prison by the president, while the other was looking for the Master Emerald. Yep, they were none other then Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

They all suddenly split up, but were still pretty close to each other at the same time. Though as time would progress, they got further and further away from each other. They wanted to find any traces of the base they were inside of five years ago when Eggman was that close to blowing up the planet with that monstrosity called the Eclipse Cannon. But thankfully, the weapon is locked away in the Ark, heavily guarded by many machines. It was unfortunately too large to destroy, that only a weapon as large as it can destroy it. But then, what could they do with the new weapon then?

Sonic was the fastest out of the three, looking around everywhere for any kind of sign that could lead the three into the base. They knew that the base was somewhere here. The question was where, and if it was still accessible. He was running and running, not really looking where he was going, until he bumped into Tails, as they both fell to the ground.

"Ow...," Tails moaned.

Sonic got up and dusted the dust that on him off. He reached out to Tails as a gesture for Tails to grab Sonic's hand so he can pull him up. But Tails ignored the gesture and just got up himself. Sonic was a bit put off by Tails sudden independence. But he sighed and just tried to get over it. "Hey, sorry buddy," Sonic said.

"It's fine," Tails said, as he was about to keep moving.

But Sonic wasn't done with Tails yet, as he ran up to him and walked along with him. Sonic then asked, "So Tails, what's up?"

"Nothing," Tails said.

Sonic was a bit annoyed by Tails' rudeness, but he wasn't going to start drama anytime soon. He was just going to try and ease the sudden tension there was. "Okay then," he said.

The two just kept walking around in silent. They both didn't know where Knuckles was, but they know if they wanted to contact him, they could get back to the Tornado 3 and wait for him up there. It's been awhile now and so far, there was nothing. Not a symbol, not a hole, nothing but hills of sand.

But, that wasn't the case for long, as all so suddenly, the wind speeds seemed to increase are seconds passed. And more and more of the sand seem to be flying along with the wind.

"Ugh, is it another sand storm?" asked Sonic. "It's getting worst." Sonic was having a hard time navigating through nearly sand storm like weather now, but he was able to manage it. Tails however wasn't as strong and he began screaming as the sand storm began to carry him.

"Tails!"

"Sonic, help!"

Sonic ran up to Tails and grabbed onto his feet, but the storm only carried the both of them, as Sonic could not drag down Tails. The storm got worst, to the point where all they could see was sand, with have of it crashing into their eyes. There was too much sand to do anything, all they could do was just let the winds take them to wherever they were headed.

**Amy**

Still stuck in the prison cell, at least they had finally found out where they were. Amy and Rouge finally discovered that this was the old Eggman base thought to had been buried in the sand. They thought of how stupid it was that none of the familiar surroundings made them realize this. They had to find Eggman's well known head symbol to discover this.

"Oh my gosh, this means we're in the desert!" Amy said.

"So THIS is where Eggman is," Rouge said. "Looks like the president is going to have to pay me with some more jewels," Rouge said happily.

Amy was yet agin annoyed by Rouge. Gosh, she had to get out of here now to retain a more stable mind. She was certainly on the edge of absolute insanity. "We've just found out that we're inside EGGMAN'S base, and all you can think about is your precious jewels."

"Hey honey, why don't you stop judging me and maybe judge yourself for a change?" Rouge asked. "Anyway, if the doctor comes here, I know him, I can maybe sweet talk him into letting us out. I've tricked him before after all."

Amy laughed a bit at Rouge's comment, thinking of how ridiculous her plan sounded. "Hah, I'm sure he didn't forget the fact that you were a GUN aganet," she said. Eggman was a very smart person, with an IQ of 300. Amy was pretty sure Eggman would not fall for Rouge's stupid plan, as the doctor could only be tricked once until he learns from his mistakes and never makes it again.

Rouge smiled. "Well maybe the doctor has the hots for me."

"Okay, I can't listen to any more of this!"

Rouge laughed at how easy it was to raise the temper of Amy. She felt like it was a beautiful ability. But then again, Amy did kind of have a temper. "Oh hush down, I'm only kidding."

Suddenly though, the girls heard footsteps coming closer to their cage.

"Someone's coming!" Amy said.

The two waited for the figure to arrive at their cell. Amy was expecting Shadow, as he was the only one that seemed to ever come here. She'd be surprised if it wasn't, as maybe Eggman wouldn't want them to figure out this was his base. But the girls already figured it out, maybe it could be an advantage to them whenever Shadow came.

However, their possible advantage was proven to be false, when instead of the black hedgehog they were ever so shocked to see everytime, it was the villian that they were even more shocked to see. With his red coat made just to fit his belly, it was definitely doctor...

"Eggman!" they both exclaimed.

Eggman faced the cage with a grin on his face, and then E-123 Omega slowly followed the doctor behind him.

"Hello ladies, I guess you know where we are now!" Eggman said, following that comment with quite the evil laugh.

**Silver**

The hospital colors suddenly went from white to red. The red light was pretty bright, and the sound was irritatingly loud. Why did they have this much trouble over a missing patient? This just engulfed Silver's suspicions even more, as he was running looking for an exit, leaving behind Espio and Charmy.

He didn't know why he had felt bad leaving them there. He shouldn't feel any obligation to make sure they are safe. Nevertheless, Silver himself was in the most trouble. He didn't know what they would do if they caught him. Maybe inject him with that poison again? Or something even worst. Silver didn't want to think about it, so he just kept running.

"How am I going to get out of here?" Silver asked. "This place is huge! If I take the front door, I'll surely be noticed. If they were willing to poison me, what else are they capable of?"

Silver wondered if he could jump out of a window, but most of the rooms didn't have windows. Infact, he couldn't remember seeing a single window, as strange as it sounded. Not even the main floor had a window, and the door wasn't transparant. So really, Silver didn't feel like he saw any signs of outside civilization during his entire stay.

All of a sudden however, Silver heard something coming closer and closer to him. He kept on running, but the sound just got louder and it felt like it was getting even closer. Silver finally stopped and turned around, and saw that it was a bullet. Silver had great powers though, and stopped the bullet with his telekinesis.

"What in the world..."

Silver looked ahead and saw the one who shot the bullet was actually some blue like robot. It kind of looked like a hedgehog, but it was much taller and more strong looking then most hedgehogs. And behind it, were a few more robots that looked exactly like it.

Silver was astonished. Why were there robots in a hospital? And why were they trying to actually KILL the missing patient. He wish Espio and Charmy saw this, maybe it would've knocked some sense into their skulls.

Silver threw the bullet and destroyed the robot that threw it. But the other robots began to blast towards Silver, and Silver was forced to use some more of his powers and began flying away, which was much faster then running. His legs were a bit wiped out at this point, but it was good that his powers were coming back.

Silver was much faster flying, almost reaching the speed of the light, which was what the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog could do. The hallways seemed endless though, as when he reached the end of one, there was another one on the left or right. The robots just kept on his tail, he couldn't lose them in such a narrow hallway.

As Silver flew, he tried to throw some stuff he came by back at the robots. It was difficult to basically throw blindly, but it did eventually stop some robots. He looked behind for a bit for a better view, and kept throwing more items at the robots, until they were all eventually down.

Silver was happy about how easy it was to get rid of the robots. His powers definitely were there for him. When Silver turned his head back to the front though, he sees a wall in front of him. He tries to slow down, but he can't as the laws of physics simply wouldn't let him. He was about to make a very deadly crash.

However, there was no crash. Because, it wasn't really a wall, as Silver fell right through the holographic image.

**Shadow**

Inside the desert base of Dr. Eggman, there was a black hedgehog named Shadow who was walking with a Chaos Emerald in his hands. Omega was asked to go with Dr. Eggman to assist him in something. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't much care. So Omega gave Shadow the emerald, and now he was gonna have to put it back himself.

"I wonder if I'm going the right way," Shadow said.

Shadow thought this base was huge, as the instructions Omega gave him to get to the vault were a tad bit confusing. But Shadow thought he was going the right way. Well, he hoped he was. If he was going the wrong way, he might be lost in this base for a long time. He was not going to get lost in what he'd basically call his home, for now.

Just what exactly did Dr. Eggman want with these emeralds anyway? Shadow could feel the large amounts of energy coming from the Chaos Emerald. Whatever, as long as he got some answers to his questions, he would be fine.

He wondered what he was going to do to those two girls that he saved while he walked. It seemed pretty useless to keep them alive. Why not get rid of them and be done with them since they weren't going to answer any of his questions? Besides, he couldn't reach their deal and let them go, Dr. Eggman had strict orders not to. The last thing Shadow wanted to do right now was upset what could be the source of his answers.

But there always was the possibility of being tricked. This man did seem familiar, but is there more to him then he remembers? He somehow feels...connected to Dr. Eggman, and he didn't know why. Did he spend alot of time with him before all this? Was he his best friend? Shadow didn't know, and it upset him.

"I think this is it," Shadow said.

Yes, it was it. Shadow finally reached the heavily protected vault room. He entered through the door, with two robots guarding the room side by side at the door.

The room seemed kind of small, but it seemed specifically designed to house Chaos Emeralds, as the space in front of him fit a Chaos Emerald perfectly. Shadow immediately inserted the Chaos Emerald. The Chaos Emerald seeps inside, his task was complete.

"Two Chaos Emeralds now stored in Chaos Emerald vault," the computer said.

"Huh?" asked Shadow.

There were two emeralds now. Did Dr. Eggman get his hands of another emerald while he and Omega were hunting for one. He was sure it wasn't a big deal, he would go and ask the doctor, he probably found it not too long ago. Shadow exits the room and heads for the doctor.

**Sonic**

The sand storm was major. It was strange though, because Tails did look at the forecast and saw that nothing was said about a major sand storm in this area. Then again, who would take their time to really be accurate about their forecasts in an area not many people go to? Still, it was a forecast, it should've been accurate enough to predict something like this.

Sonic and Tails kept flying around in the sand storm. They weren't aware of where Knuckles had gone off to, but they were pretty sure he was caught in the same storm. The question was where they would all end up after the storm.

Tails was worried about his Tornado 3. He made it pretty strong, but he was worried it would get dmanaged in this sand storm a bit. Who knows how much longer this storm was going to last? Obviously though, it wasn't the main thing on Tails' mind. The main thing on his mind was actually his own life.

Sonic was with Tails, as they held each other's hands as hard as they could. They thought maybe together, they could try to fight the storm. But it seemed useless. The storm felt like a tornado of sand, and they were basically useless in trying to fight it. Not even Sonic's speed could get them out of this, as he had to reach the ground first in order to make use of his speed.

"Just hang on!" Sonic shouted, fighting the loud noises called wind.

They both kept on screaming that felt pretty endless. Will this storm calm down fast? Sonic and Tails hoped so, as they slowly got so caught up in the storm, that they eventually got exhausted, and drifted into a sleep as the storm continued to carry them.

Later on, the two were lying down at an unfamiliar place. It was pretty dark, and there was alot of sand on the ground. It was a strange place to find, but something about it will seem familiar to them.

Sonic slowly opened his, and sees his surroundings. It was too dark to really see anything, but he definitely saw they were no longer outside. He sits up, and tries to get all the sand out of his head. He looks to the right of him, and sees Tails right next to him.

"Hey Tails, wake up," Sonic said.

"Ugh," Tails moaned.

Tails got up himself, and noticed that they were no longer outside where the sand storm was raging at its worst. He was still a little dizzy from the storm, but he knocked that feeling out once he got the sand out of his head.

"Where are we?" Tails asked.

"I don't know," Sonic said. "But I have a feeling it might be just the place we were looking for."

Sonic was pretty sure that this was Eggman's base. If Eggman wasn't here, it'd make sense there were no lights on in this room. It would mean that this base really wasn't inhabited for five years. But then again, it was a huge place, Eggman could be somewhere around here.

"H-hey, where's Knuckles?" Tails asked.

Sonic and Tails looked around, and realized they were all alone, with a familiar red echidna out of their sight.

"I don't know...," Sonic said.

**Amy**

It turns out Amy and Rouge didn't really have to figure out where they were, because Eggman had decided to come visit them and tell them himself that they were in his base. But Amy and Rouge did also figure out this was the base buried by a sand storm 3 years ago.

"You could say so doc," Rouge said with a smile.

"Eggman, you let us go right now or I'm gonna pound your head!" Amy shouted in anger.

Eggman let out another evil laugh. He was obviously having fun seeing Amy being as desperate as she is. "Oh, you two are just lovely prisoners," Eggman said. "Rouge, the backstabber working for the president. And Amy, the annoying idiot that follows her hero around like an insect."

"What?" Amy cried in anger. "Now you listen to me you fathead, once Sonic comes and gets me out of this prison, you're going to be sorry!" Amy didn't like seeing Eggman's face one bit. It's just all the destruction he had caused and how he always seems to treat her like a pinata that pisses her off. She wasn't what she was five years ago, she was nearing eighteen. But these old people she hated before are bringing back her habits of acting pretty childish.

"Well Amy, it doesn't seem like you've changed a bit, that's kind of sad," Eggman said.

"You didn't really change either," Amy said.

Rouge sighed at how Amy's words weren't helping the situation at all. Rouge could get she hated the guy but come on, that's not going to get her anywhere. "So doc, what do ya want?" Rouge asked. "Why did you decide to come clean about this place now?"

Eggman smiled, and then said, "I actually have something that I'm going to need you girls for. The reason that I've kept you alive is now about to be revealed."

"Well whatever it is, we're not going to do it!" Amy said. The last thing Amy wanted to do was help an evil dictator. If Eggman thought he was going to make her do anything, then he had another thing coming.

"Oh, I don't think you really have a choice you little brat," Eggman said. "You're my prisoners. So as prisoners, you're going to have to do what I say. But don't worry, you won't have to do a thing for this. Infact, you could fall asleep if you wanted to throughout all of this."

"What could you possibly be referring to doctor?" Rouge asked.

"Mm hm hm hm," Eggman quietly said. "Omega, take them away!"

"What?" Amy and Rouge both asked in shock simultaneously.

Omega nodded, and slowly opened the cage and grabbed hold of both Amy and Rouge. Both of them tried to get out of Omega's huge hands, but they could not, as this robot was alot stronger then alot of previous Eggman creations. It didn't even look like a bandik, it looked like GUN and Eggman came together to create this super weapon. They both struggled, but their efforts were proven futile, as Amy and Rouge got further and further from their cage.

**Shadow**

In the main computer room, there was this huge computer there to fit in what seemed like a pretty huge room full of all sorts of inventions. Eggman spent the most time in this room, working on whatever devilious scheme he had in his head. While Omega took Amy and Rouge to wherever they were headed, Eggman went back to this main room, and sat at the chair in front of the giant monitor.

But he wouldn't be staring at the screen for long, as the strange black hedgehog Shadow suddenly entered the room, who was ready to get a few questions answered from the doctor himself.

"My my, if it isn't Shadow," Eggman said. "I assume that nothing went wrong with putting the Chaos Emerald where it belonged."

Shadow shook his head, and then said, "No, there was no trouble. The Chaos Emerald is now safe. But...master, why was there a Chaos Emerald already in there?"

Eggman grinned from hearing what Shadow had to say. "Wow Shadow, that wasn't the first question I was expecting from you! I'll be glad to tell you.

"You see Shadow, when I escaped the prison, I knew I had to get somewhere fast. The first place that came into my mind was this place of course, as the Mystic Ruins one was out in the open. Little did I know that the base was buried by a sand storm. But that was even better! Not only did I have a pre-made base, but it was also hidden from civilization! So all I really had to do was find it.

"However, I wasn't about to go and search for eternity in a desert. So instead, I found a little shack in the country to stay at and work on something that'll find my base in no time. And that my friend, is how Omega was built. But there was something missing that would've made my greatest robot creation complete. That's when I went and found a Chaos Emerald. And after powering Omega with that, he was an unstoppable force and we found my base just like that!

"So, anything else you would like to ask?"

Shadow thought of the millions of questions he had. Like what he was doing in that capsule back in the Mystic Ruins. Why he somehow knew to come to this base? When Eggman saw him it was as if Eggman had expected him to come. Just what did Eggman know about him?

"I...," Shadow began to say.

"I FOUND YOU!" shouted an unfamiliar voice.

Eggman and Shadow turned to where the voice was coming from, and they saw a white hedgehog who looked very angry, ready to slaughter the both of them at sight. It was Silver the Hedgehog, how did he get from the hospital to here?

"Who are you?" Shadow asked.

"I'm Silver the Hedgehog," Silver said.

"Oh, it's you," Eggman said. "How in the world did you escape my trap anyway? It's full proof to keep idiots like you inside forever!"

Silver suddenly figured out that the hospital was nothing but a trap, and it seemed like Eggman was the one responsible for it all. Silver's eyes were raging with anger, as if there was fire inside of them. He felt like he knew exactly what was going on, and he didn't like it.

"You're going to pay for what you had done you monster!" Silver shouted.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Eggman asked. "Excuse me if I found it rude you were snooping around in a place you were not supposed to snoop in in the first place! You should be lucky that I teleported you into my virtual reality trap instead of letting you rot in my Mystic Ruins base right after the bomb detonated. You weren't a bad guinea pig though, the problem was you escaped it. I don't know who you are and what you want with me, but you certainly aren't going to stand in my way!"

Silver was absolutely disgusted, as it seemed like he felt that this Eggman person should know exactly who he was. He didn't like liars, and he was ready to let his rage out and kill the egg shaped human right there.

"Don't play dumb with me you creep!" Silver shouted. "I've finally found you after a long search across time zones and universes! It ends today...Eggman NEGA, the IBLIS TRIGGER!"

**Conclusion**

What will happen to Amy and Rouge? What is Omega going to be doing with the two? And what will happen once Sonic and Tails get into the action in the desert base? And where has Knuckles wounded up? What exactly is the true story to Shadow's return, and what exactly does Eggman know about it? And why has Silver called Dr. Eggman Eggman Nega, the Iblis Trigger? All of this, on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs!


	6. The Base Blowup

**Episode #06: The Base Blowup**

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Amy and Rouge finally were able to exit their prison cell, only to have themselves taken away by Dr. Eggman's newest robot, E-123 Omega, reasons unknown.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles went to search for Eggman's base, but a sand storm threatened their lives and now Sonic and Tails are split up from Knuckles, having no idea where he could be.

Shadow meanwhile retrieved a Chaos Emerald, but found out Eggman already had another one in his vault. He was finally given the chance to answer the questions, until he was interrupted.

Shadow was interrupted by Silver, who accidently escaped the hospital which turned out to be a simulation created by Dr. Eggman. Silver called Eggman Eggman Nega, the Iblis Trigger. Why did Silver call Eggman by this name? All this on this episode of Desperate Hedgehogs.

**Shadow/Silver**

What in the world was this? All of a sudden, this strange white hedgehog that no one even knows comes barging into this secret place and calls Eggman something completely different from who he really was. At least, that's what everyone thinks he really is. But this Silver person didn't seemed to be acting, he seemed to feel like he was spouting the truth. But how could he be spouting the truth? Everything he's saying sounda absolutely ridiculous! Shadow wondered, is there more to Eggman then meets the eye?

To Silver though, he felt he finally found what he had been looking for. After this long journey, traveling to so many places he was unknown to, he FINALLY found the person that was the answer to his problems. THE person that was all he needed to fix everything he thought was wrong. THE person he needed to kill, needing the blood of. Silver was ready for this match he'd been wanting for a long time.

"Silver?" suddenly asked by a familiar voice.

Silver was very shocked to hear that voice, as he knew exactly who it was. He didn't expect him to be here of all places, but then again, maybe he was able to escape too. Silver turned around, and that green crocodile skin no doubt meant this was Vector, almost solving a whole nother question.

"Vector!" Silver said in shock. "W-where have you been?"

Vector smiled, as he always loved to explain the answers to such questions. He felt the question called for his detective skills perfectly, as detectives definitely had the skills to explain things in a cool yet informative way.

"I'll be happy to tell ya Silver!" Vector said. "You see, I suspected something was fishy with the hospital. You were still asleep so I couldn't talk to you, but Espio and Charmy, they disagreed with me. And strangely, no matter how much I told them to, they weren't going to follow me in this investigation. I was actually on my own. Not even Charmy, who usually gives into my threats, was going to go with me. So I investigated myself. Doc, there's a glitch in your little trap, because that's when I found a holographic wall, and then appeared in this base! It took me awhile to get over here though, this place is huge!"

"So that's how I escaped," Silver concluded.

"But now it's my turn," Vector suddenly said. Silver wondered what Vector was going to ask, but he had a bad feeling he knew exactly what the question was. "Silver, why did you just call that guy Eggman Nega, the Iblis Trigger? I gotta admit, that's a question even I can't answer!"

"Um...well," Silver had no idea how to answer that question. He didn't want to drag anyone else into this mess he seemed to be involved with. But now Silver was stuck, he had to either explain the whole thing to Vector, or try and come up with something just as convincing. Problem was, he wasn't very good at quick thinking. What was he to do? Vector was getting impatient.

But thankfully, Dr. Eggman grew tired of this back and forth between two creatures he didn't like very much. So he shouted, "Grr, SHUT UP!" This caught the attention of Silver, Vector, and Shadow. "LOOK, I don't know what you're supposed to be and why you think I'm whatever you're looking for, but you're tresspassing in my base. So for that, it's time to say good-bye. Shadow, finish that hedgehog off!"

Shadow nodded and then said, "With pleasure." Shadow meant that too, he was about to ask the doctor a very important question, and here was this random white hedgehog coming out of nowhere and interrupting him.

Shadow charged towards Silver, and began the fight as he tackled into Silver, making him fly into the wall, making an unstable crash.

**Sonic**

Dark rooms meant no room for error. This is what Sonic and Tails' situation was basically. After a gigantic sand storm that came out of nowhere, Sonic and Tails found themselves inside this dark room. Had they finally made it into Eggman's base? Sonic seemed to be sure of it, it's not like there was an old shack somewhere they could visit in this part of the desert. This had to be Eggman's base.

The question was what happened to Knuckles. He was a tough guy, but if Sonic was blown by that storm, no doubt Knuckles was too, who isn't as fast as Sonic was. But maybe strength was a key factor in surviving that storm. The two could never really tell. And they had other things on their mind besides the best way to tackle sand storms.

"This has got to be Eggman's base!" Sonic concluded. "I can feel it Tails, this place feels all too familiar."

Tails nodded in agreement, and said, "Definitely. The walls feel just like they did five years ago when we were here. They're more dusty, so there's a chance Eggman might not have come here."

"Well, how else did we get in here then? We must have fallen through some kind of secret entrance or something, which egghead obviously had to build."

"Well, let's just get going Sonic, maybe we'll find Knuckles on the way."

Sonic agreed, and the two began walking off into the dark to find any signs of light, meaning that some person has been down here recently, most likely Dr. Eggman. But every turn, and every hallway had absolutely no lights on, they were just filled with dust. They kept on searching, and they kept wondering if this search was actually useless. Either way, they don't know how to actually get out, so they just continued on with their search.

But there were still many doubts, not a single sign of light had been spotted. Perhaps they were going in circles, but the both of them did not want to believe that, no matter how true it started to seem.

"Man, every hallway feels like the same thing, it's like a maze," Sonic said. "Tails, don't you have some light on your watch we could use?"

Tails' faces suddenly had a large mouth attached to it. Sonic was right, why didn't he think of this before? His watch had a flashlight, not to mention tons of other features that could've been helpful. Looks like Sonic was the one to help him this time.

"Oh darn it, why didn't I think of that?" Tails asked in absolute frustration.

Sonic, noticing Tails anger, then said, "Hey, no worries Tails, we all forget stuff in a really dark base."

Tails sighed, he wasn't mad at Sonic in reality, he was more mad at himself, wanting to show Sonic that he had changed, and that he didn't need Sonic's help in anything. Nevertheless, Tails turned on the flashlight, and they saw all sorts of symbols that looked very familiar. Yep, this is no doubt Eggman's base the both of them thought, at least it was finally confirmed.

**Amy**

"LET ME GO!"

Amy was repeatately yelling that as she and Rouge were being grabbed and taken somewhere by force by this new Eggman robot named E-123 Omega. At least they were no longer stuck in that prison cell, but now they were being taken to who knows where to do who knows what. Amy was very nervous, crying to be let go. She wish she could grab a hold of her hammar, but she didn't exactly have it at the moment.

Rouge meanwhile looked very displeased. She never liked to be forced to do something. She always was the type to do things her way, and this was definitely not her way. Also, it didn't really show in her face, but Rouge did have a certain amount of fear as well. Unlike most situations, she didn't know what was going to happen next, and she was nervous about what was going to be done.

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The robot remained unaffected by Amy's loud and obnoxious voice. It was unfortunately what it was, a robot. A very silent one at that, but stronger then all of Eggman's other robots. Rouge herself tried to break free of the robot, but she couldn't get free, no matter the amount of kicks she inflicted on the robot. It just remained emotionless, continuing on its path.

"Where are you taking us?" Amy asked, after getting a little tired of worthless yelling.

Omega didn't say a thing, but the answer came when the two entered this large room that contained this gigantic fleet in it, with tons of robots working on it. Amy and Rouge stared in amazement. This fleet was even bigger then the Egg Carrier, and THAT was pretty hard to top in their eyes. This fleet was probably three times the size, it was so obviously larger.

The fleet was colored a grey and red color, with Eggman's face plastered all over the fleet and its weapons including cannons and guns. It was enormous, why in the world is Eggman letting them see this?

"Woah!" Amy said in amazement.

"I guess a month is all the doctor needs," Rouge said.

Was the doctor going to do something to the two that involved the fleet? If that was true, whatever could it be? Amy and Rouge were nervous, it was uncomfortable to see such a gigantic ship right in front of them capable of destroying large cities, including their comfty homes and museums with jewels.

Omega flew onto the ship and suddenly put Amy and Rouge against a pole. He suddenly made this glowly kind of string appear, light blue was the color, and tied Amy and Rouge to the pole. Oh my, if Eggman was going to take this fleet to the sky, he wanted the both of them to come with him for some reason.

"Let us go!" Amy shouted. "What does Eggman want from us?"

"Answer is unavailable," Omega stated.

"You mean you don't even know?" Amy asked. This is just what they needed, another mindless robot only following orders. It's too bad Eggman seemed to had learned from his lesson with Gamma. The two would just have to keep struggling to get rid of the rope, but there was something different about it that made it unbreakable, it seemed like the equivalent to steel.

Before Omega could leave the room and leave the two hanging there though, a crash was heard, and the three of them and the hentchmen working on the fleet all turned their attention to the right of the room. A hole had suddenly appeared in there, and once the smoke disappeared, a familiar red echidna appeared out of it.

"KNUCKLES!" Amy and Rouge both shouted.

"So this really is Eggman's base!" Knuckles concluded. "Amy, Rouge, it's a good thing you two are okay. I'll get you guys out of there and then we can look for Sonic and Tails!"

Omega knew no doubt that this was an intruder however, so Omega quickly charged towards Knuckles and punched him, ignitiating the match between the two powerhouses.

**Shadow/Silver**

The battle had just begun, and both hedgehogs had their weaknesses and strengths. Silver and Shadow had never met or heard of each other up to this point, so it was interesting to immediately be on bad terms. But then again, what was Silver supposed to expect when he barges into the base and spouts such things anyway? Silver faught with no hesitation, as he had no idea who this creature was, and Shadow thought the same.

The battle gets into the air, as Silver keeps flying upwards in the large room and begins throwing object after object down at Shadow. Shadow avoids each one though, as he gets higher and higher trying to reach Silver. Silver gets nervous, this guy obviously has alot of strength, Shadow could NOT get anywhere near him.

But Shadow was about to finally charge into Silver for another attack, but Silver quickly held Shadow himself using his psychothenesis.

"Gah!" Shadow growled. "Just what is this power?"

Silver smiled, thinking that his powers must be that threatening to make someone like Shadow feel out of place. Silver answered his question, feeling a little more comfortable saying, "It's called telekinesis. You're gonna be sorry you challenged me!"

Shadow chuckled however, which got on Silver's nerves hard. Silver was about to throw Shadow into the wall as hard as he could and be done with him, but Shadow all of a sudden said two words, ending Silver's advantage.

"CHAOS...BLAST!" Shadow screamed.

The red aura suddenly surrounded Shadow, and once Silver's body touched it, Silver let go of his control of Shadow and suddenly crashed into the ground. Impossible, who in the world would have the power to break through his control like that? This hedgehog was definitely no joke, Silver had to be on his guard.

"Shadow you idiot!" Eggman yelled in anger. "Don't do that again or you're going to destroy this base!"

Shadow looked arround him and he suddenly saw that he may have ruined a few of the doctor's machines. Shadow had to make sure not to use that attack again, the last thing he wanted to do was upset what could be the solution to all of his problems.

Shadow suddenly landed on ground just in time for Silver to recover. And the two soon went into hand to hand combat, as they both began throwing rapid punches and kicks at each other. The both of them didn't seem to be able to lay even a sratch on each other though, they seemed to actually match melee wise.

While Silver was attacking, he glanced an eye at Vector, who just seemed to be standing in the background watching. Isn't this guy twice the size of him? Why isn't he helping? You would think Vector was the brute force of the group, but he actually looked quite scared.

"Um Vector, aren't you going to help me out?" Silver asked.

Vector looked at Silver and Shadow fighting nervously, so he answered Silver's question nervously. "Um, no offense Silver, but I'm not the one in the group that's there to fight the ultimate life form! Espio's the guy you're looking for!"

Silver kept looking at Vector in disappointment whenever he could, but this caused Shadow to gain the upper hand for a bit, and he finally hit Silver. Silver got hit pretty hard, but this didn't completely knock him down thankfully. Silver got control of Shadow yet again with his telekinesis, and he was prepared to not waste anytime and really attack this time.

Silver kept pushing Shadow into walls, machines, and the ground. Eggman stared in horror at all the destruction happening in his room. This place was obviously not meant for a match as intense as this. Shadow was too weak by all the pain to use Chaos Blast again, so he just kept getting hit, and hit, and hit, and there seemed to be no end to it.

Finally though, after much damage, Silver let go of Shadow, and Shadow was left to stay on the ground looking pretty pathetic. Silver had powers that Shadow couldn't 100% overcome, and that was a problem.

"Had enoguh?" Silver asked.

Shadow slowly looked up at Silver then to tried to answer the question, with fire raging in his eyes.

**Sonic**

The flashlight was really helping out Sonic and Tails, as the places they were encountering kept becoming more and more different. It looks like they were actually getting somewhere in the base. But there were still no lights. If Eggman was here, they were in an unused part of the base. Perhaps it was unused for a reason...

"How much longer is it going to take to find a room actually being used here?" Sonic asked.

Tails thought about Sonic's question. It really did feel like they were walking around for a long time. But in reality, this place was huge, and at walking speed, they weren't going to explore it very fast. "Just be patient, we'll find something," Tails said.

Sonic sighed though, he wasn't used to having to wait since his legs could get him anywhere so fast that he never had to wait. "But this is taking FOREVER. Tails, how about we split up?"

Tails knew exactly what to say to Sonic to answer that question, and his face basically showed the answer. "Sonic, that's a horrible idea! Just look at what happened to Knuckles! Unless you want to get lost, you need my help, okay?"

"Ok ok Tails." Sonic was a little startled at Tails' comment. It seemed like anything Sonic would say would get on Tails' nerves. Tails certainly had changed. He was a teenager now, so maybe things were just a little more complicated. Still, Sonic couldn't help but feel there was a bigger reason other than Tails was a teenager.

"Um Tails, did I do something wrong?" Sonic asked.

Tails always wished Sonic would never ask that question. Tails didn't want to answer, he wanted to look like he didn't much care about what he was thinking about. But he knew that was a blatant lie deep down, and he hated it. But, Tails would continue to try to look like he didn't much care. "Why would you ask that?" Tails asked.

Sonic knew when Tails was trying to hide something, and Tails wasn't doing a good job of hiding it this time like always. It may have been five years, but he still knows his friend. "Because Tails, you've kind of been giving me the cold shoulder ever since we talked to each other back in the Mystic Ruins," Sonic explained.

Tails sighed, and just kept walking on, trying to avoid Sonic's question. But Sonic wasn't going to go down without a fight, he wanted answers now. He was sick of wondering what could've happened to make Tails act like this.

"Tails? Say something, please."

Tails decided to respond this time to shut Sonic up by saying, "Look Sonic, nothing is going on, okay? Let's just get back to looking for Egg..."

Suddenly the two heard a crashing sound in front of them. There was basically a pile of rocks in front of them, but they heard some sort of sound on the other side of them. It sounded like some kind of fight. Sonic and Tails knew they had to get to the other side of those rocks.

Sonic spin dashed his way through the rocks and broke them all apart. At the other side of them, there was finally some light, and the sound only got louder. It was true, Dr. Eggman was in this base. Well, at least SOMEONE was in this base.

**Amy**

Power robot versus power echidna. They both had incredible strength. It was just a matter of whether the more advanced one in tenchnology or the one with more natural power was going to win. Omega was currently shooting as many bullets as he could at Knuckles, as Knuckles continued to glide avoiding each bullet.

Omega suddenly began to shoot minature rockets at Knuckles. They were faster and were getting much closer to Knuckles. Knuckles was a little nervous. He knew he wasn't as fast as Sonic. He was also getting sick of playing defense. Time to try offense. Knuckles began to glide towards Omega and then crashed into him.

Omega and Knuckles began to go into hand to hand combat. Knuckles found it difficult to make even a dent on Omega's steel armor however. Never had he see an Eggman robot as tough as Omega was. Looks like Eggman decided to put quality over quantity this time.

Omega didn't fight back. He just kept blocking punch after punch and kick after kick. It was as if he thought tiring out the echidna would be the answer to defeating him. Knuckles seemed to be a pretty aggressive person, maybe he should take advantage of it.

Amy could only stare at the two in horror, hoping that Knuckles would live up to his image of being this power fighter and save them. Her and Rouge were definitely not in the mood to travel in the air along with Eggman. All the hentchmen just stared along with the two, even though they definitely had to work on the fleet.

"Kncukles, don't give up!" Amy shouted. "It's just an Eggman robot!"

Knuckles didn't think Amy's words were all that encouraging. This wasn't just an Eggman robot, it was a real powerhouse. Just what was Eggman thinking when he made this robot? The only thing weak about it was its speed, but it made up for it with its powerful projectiles. "Amy, maybe if you were fighting this robot yourself, you'd agree with me when I say this ain't no ordinary robot!"

Amy didn't like Knuckles' response to her comment. If it was Sonic, he'd appreciate it she thought. Oh well, Knuckles was an idiot anyway. If he wanted to fight with absolutely no support, she was fine with it. But she sighed, she didn't know what else to do being tied to a pole against her will.

"Rouge, don't you have some GUN thing you can use to get us out of here?" Amy asked.

Rouge shook her head in disappointment, then said, "Sorry gal, nothing I have can cut through this rope. I don't even have that much, I think Shadow may have went through my pockets while I was asleep."

"Or maybe you were too busy focuing on jewels to realize you forgot to bring some key items!" Amy complained.

"Wow, you sure aren't a little miss sunshine like you were five years ago," Rouge said.

Meanwhile, Knuckles and Omega continued to fight. None of them could really lay any damage on each other. Omega was too strong to damage, and Knuckles was too fast for Omega to attack. It seemed pointless for awhile. No one was winning, no one was losing. Suddenly however, the both of them just stopped, as everyone in the room began hearing a rumbling kind of noise. It seemed like massive amounts of energy was suddenly being exerted, but where?

"CHAOS..."

What was that voice? The person who shouted it was nowhere to be found in the room, and he sounded very angry as well. But before everyone could think about it a little longer, the mysterious person then shouted,

"BLAST!"

Suddenly, the wall on the left side of the room collapsed. As the dust was diffusing into the new rooms, and the stones that used to make the wall fell, it was revealed who the attacker of the wall was on the other side. It was none other then Shadow the Hedgehog, and Silver the Hedgehog laid next to him, very weak from the attack.

"S-Shadow!" Knuckles shouted. "You really are alive!"

Amy and Rouge stare at the destruction of the wall, as they spot the likes of Shadow, Silver, Eggman, and Vector on the other side.

"Vector?" Amy asked.

"Oh, hey you guys!" Vector said. Vector suddenly noticed Knuckles however, and suddenly felt this uncomfortable sensation inside his stomach. It was Knuckles' chance to finally get him, and there was nowhere to run. Knuckles looked at Vector with anger in his eyes. Finally, a chance to finally get a clue as to where the Master Emerald was. "Um Knuckles, I cam explain!"

But before Knuckles could get to Eggman, two figures decided to join the chaos, and Sonic and Tails suddenly appeared in the room with the fleet, as they looked at all of the confusing mess that was in front of them. Noticing everyone, including those they thought were dead.

"Wow, this looks like quite the party!" Sonic said. "We've finally found you Eggman! You're coming with us!"

"No, Eggman first has to tell me where the Master Emerald is!" Knuckles said.

"Wait, he is not what you think he is!" Silver shouted. "I have some unfinished business to take care of with him!"

"SILENCE!" Eggman shouted. So many people apparantly wanted something with the doctor. He was getting annoyed with his name being tossed around everywhere. While he loved being the center of attention, these were all pests to him. People he didn't want attention from. "I'm not going anywhere with any of you, but I'll be sure to put you all into the dumps! E-500 Reptar, go!"

And suddenly, a giant prehistoric dinosaur like robot dropped onto the scene right behind Eggman, surprising everyone. How did Eggman make so many things in such a short period of time? Eggman got onto his eggpod and flew to the top of the machine, then inserted himself into it. "Shadow, Omega, let's finish this!"

It was an epic fight indeed that was to happen. It was Shadow, Omega, and Eggman's giant robot, against Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Silver.

**Sonic/Silver/Shadow/Amy**

The robot was as large as you would imagine a dinosaur would be. But this dinosaur in particular had lazer guns and missles. Not to mention tons more brute force then a regular dinosaur. Shadow and Omega looked just as ready to fight the crew. They could take em, no problem. At least, they hoped they could.

Shadow charged towards Knuckles in his ball form. Knuckles grabbed onto Shadow though and tried to hold him back from attacking him. But Shadow was strong, and with Knuckles still in utter shock seeing Shadow, Shadow broke though and hurled into Knuckles. Knuckles quickly got up, and went in for a punch. And then the two went into hand to hand combat.

Omega started to shoot as many bullets as he could at Silver. But Silver actually took control of all the bullets with his telekinesis, and threw them back at Omega. Omega's armor was damaged a bit, but it was minor. Omega knew he had to get Silver to let his guard down somehow. So Omega flew to the skies, and tried to confuse the hedgehog by moving around as fast as he could. Silver flew up too, to try to get a good look at where Omega was.

So Sonic and Tails were left with the big Eggman himself. Sonic and Tails nodded at each other, they knew that to do. Tails flew to the top and then flew around Eggman to try and distract the guy. Eggman kept trying to grab Tails, but in the air, Tails was a bit fast for Eggman's robot to catch.

Meanwhile, Sonic began running up to the robot and began to try and spin his way through the stomach. But the material the robot was made of was pretty tough. And without a Chaos Emerald, it was hard to break through it. Eggman saw Sonic trying to attack him, and Eggman grabbed Sonic and threw him into Tails.

Omega continued flying around Silver, and Silver could not get a proper reading on where Omega was. Until Omega snuck up behind Silver and punched him in the back, causing him to fall and lose control of his pwoers for a second. But before Silver could fall to the ground, Sonic and Tails crashed into him.

Knuckles was repeatately getting beat up by Shadow. Knuckles was unfortunately no match for the ultimate life form. But Knuckles kept trying to attack, he was not the type to just give up despite the hopelessness. He was a fighter, so he would keep on fighting.

But Knuckles unfortunately had to stop fighting, when Sonic, Tails, and Silver crashed into Knuckles and they all crashed into a wall, all four of them lying on the floor helpless. Vector, Amy, and Rouge stare in despair. Had they lost the fight?

"Oh ho ho ho!" Eggman laughed. "I still got it after five whole years! You all better not do a thing to deter my plans, or else your girls are going to get it!"

So that's why Eggman is taking Amy and Rouge along with him. He was going to use them to his advantage. Amy didn't like it one bit. She was not going to be the reason Sonic loses this fight. Amy suddenly began struggling more then ever to get out, but it was still useless.

"Grr, you won't get away with this Eggman!" Amy shouted.

But Eggman knew he could. He knew the cards were in his hands, and all he had to do was make the right moves and he would win. "Alright, while you all rest up here, I'm taking off on my brand new fleet, and all of you will be able to witness my official return, as I announce to the world that they are all doomed. OH HO HO HO HO HO HO! Shadow, Omega, let's go immediately!"

Shadow and Omega nodded, and they, along with Eggman, quickly got onto the new fleet. All of Eggman's hentchmen then followed. Eggman quickly ran into the control room to get things started.

The four fighters tried to get up, seeing the faces of Amy and Rouge made them feel absolute despair. They had to save the two now, so Eggman didn't have an advantage. Then they all could attack full force. They slowly got up, and tried to hurry to the two of them.

But Eggman was already a step ahead, as the fleet finally started up and began to fly. The four fighters tried to run to the ship and jump onto it, but they were still beat from the beatings they were given. Unfortunately, the fleet was now too high to reach for them, and it finally took off into the sky, leaving the captives on board.

"Amy! Rouge!" Sonic screamed.

"They're gone," Silver said. "Now who knows what he's going to do next!"

"If we get back to the Tornado 3 outside of the base, we can quickly catch up to Eggman and launched an attack on his fleet," Tails said.

Sonic nodded in agreement, then said, "Okay Tails, let's get going then!"

"Espio and Charmy are still trapped in that virtual reality program Silver," Vector reminded. "We need to get on that ship and save them!"

Silver nodded in agreement, and then said, "Okay Vector, I'll help you."

Knuckles had a question in mind that he thought everyone had forgotten due to all of the excitement. They had finally found Eggman, and also found where he was staying. But now a new question has risen up. Knuckles faces Silver, and then askes, "Um, who are you?"

**Conclusion**

Eggman's base has finally been discovered, but now what will happen once the public sees Eggman's fleet in the sky? What will become of all four of the hedgehogs now? Find out on the next Desperate Hedgehogs!


	7. Battle in the Sky

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Sonic and Tails finally got into Eggman's base, and have discovered themselves that Eggman was hiding out in this base. Now that they know where Eggman is, what will happen from here?

Amy and Rouge were taken away from their prison cell, only to find out that they were going to be used to prevent Sonic from stopping Eggman as he took his fleet out into the skies.

Silver escaped the hospital at last, only to find that Eggman had Shadow to defend him. Vecotr also popped up, and he wonders what Silver meant calling Eggman such ludicris things.

With the fleet taking off with Shadow, Amy, Rouge, Omega, Eggman and his hentchmen on it, what are Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Silver, and Vector now going to do? All this on this episode of Desperate Hedgehogs.

**Silver/Sonic**

"Um, who are you?"

That was the question that Silver had hoped everyone would forget to ask. But he had to be realistic. How could these three NOT ask about a complete stranger like Silver? No one but the Chaotix knew he had existed up to this point. Now that he was exposed, it looked like he had to tell them if he wanted their help to stop Dr. Eggman. Silver knew the madman had to be stopped, and he wouldn't rest until he was.

"Um, my name is Silver the Hedgehog, and you can say it's my job to stop Eggman," Silver stated.

Sonic walked over to Silver and then said, "Well, I haven't seen you round these parts before. Were you hired by the government to take care of him like I was?"

Silver nodded, as he had just remembered that's exactly what he had told Vector and the others of the Chaotix. "Yes, I was."

Sonic thought it was weird actually. If Silver was hired to take care of Eggman, why didn't they have him go along with Sonic, Tails, and Rouge? "Then...why didn't the president have you just come with me, Tails, and Rouge?"

Silver didn't like the tons of questions coming from Sonic. But he didn't want anyone to feel suspicious. Vector already did, he didn't need a blue hedgehog that could actually put up a fight against him to as well. Silver had to answer any question coming. "Maybe he thought we'd both get in each other's way?" Silver asked. "We're together now though so looks like we can go after Eggman together."

Sonic nodded, he had no further questions. Silver did fight beside them afterall against Eggman's new robot. Just how suspicious can you be of the guy? "Okay then, why don't we all get to the Tornado 3 right away? It looks like this elevator on the right might take us up to the surface."

The five of them looked to the right of the room and saw the little elevator. Perhaps this is another secret entrance that Eggman used? They all entered the elevator, and they waited patiently for it to go up.

Five minutes later, they are on top of the desert next to the Tornado 3. It was covered in sand, but it was nothing that damaged it. Tails dusted some of the sand off with his tails, and it already looked useable.

"Say, aren't there only two seats in there?" Vector asked.

Tails nodded, but gave a little smile towards the four facing him. The four guys were confused. What was Tails exactly smiling about? They found out, when Tails pushed a button on the remote controller sitting on his hand, and the Tornado 3 suddenly began this large transformation. It quickly expanded and expanded, until it looked like a white military plane. It looked like it could fit 20-30 people in it, and there were tons more weapons on it this time.

"WOAH!" all four of them screamed.

"Now the Tornado 3 is kind of huge," Sonic said, laughing.

"Get in everyone, this form isn't as fast as the other forms, but it's more then enough room for us!" Tails said, sounding very proud that he was able to impress the travelers.

Everyone nodded and smiled, and all five of them quickly entered the Tornado 3, which was now an actual plane. The plane then quickly starts flying up as soon as Tails got to the control room, and all the sand that was on the plane quickly dusts off due to the fast winds suddenly being generated. The plane takes off, and begins searching for Eggman's big bad fleet.

**Silver**

The inside of the plane was painted a silver color, just like Silver the Hedgehog. Although, he didn't exactly blend into the background, he was still quite noticeable. He looked out the window at the sun-setting sky. It would be dawn soon, that's for sure.

He was alone in the room, until a familiar green crocodile came walking into the room. Silver didn't know whether to be pleased or frightened by Vector's prescence. He had hoped that Vector forgot all about what he had called Eggman. But that was highly unlikely. Vector was a detective afterall, it's his job to notice the small things. Silver's thing wasn't exactly small either.

"Hey Vector," Silver said, turning around to face him.

"Silver, how you doing?" Vector asked.

Silver thought it was weird Vector didn't jump immediately into the question he was expecting. But Silver decided to just go with it. "Oh, I'm doing fine," Silver said. "You?"

Vector smiled, and then said, "I'm doing pretty good too. I hope Espio and Charmy are okay, let's hope whatever is being done to them in there goes away when they get out."

Silver nodded his head, and then said, "Yeah."

"By the way Silver, are you going to tell me why you called Eggman Eggman Nega, the Iblis Trigger?"

Silver's heart basically stopped for a second. He did not want to blow his cover in this place at all. He unfortunately did in the heat of the moment, thinking he had finally found who he had been looking for. Now though, he either had to tell Vector who he really was, or come up with some genius plan to get out of this. Silver's plan wasn't genius by any means though, as he just groaned and ignored Vector's question.

But Vector picked this up and got a little upset over it. "Silver, you can't expect me to ignore what you said," he began to say. "I'm a detective, and if you say something like that, I'm gonna be walking all over it."

Silver was a little pissed that Vector was doing what he was doing. Vector would be smart to not get involved. But Silver held back and said, "There's nothing to talk about Vector."

Vector couldn't settle with that and didn't notice the warning. He said, "No. There is something to talk about here Silver. Silver, you obviously don't know how things work around here. When you do something strange and don't say a thing about it, you're going to be labeled suspicious. Now I DEMAND you tell me what is going on here Silver. You hired me to help you on your little mission, and I need to know exactly why you need me to do this!"

Silver had enough. He turned around with fire in his eyes and shouted angirly to Vector, "Have you forgotten the current situation? You need MY help Vector to get your dumb teammates out of Eggman's trap. And did you know your teammates basically forced me to take your help? I didn't want your help and I still don't want your help! But I was nice enough to accept it and I'll make sure you get paid for your services. But, you need MY help to save Espio and Charmy. And if you're going to keep questioning me like this, then you're on your own! So, you're either going to drop this now, or I'll throw you out of the freakin' plane!"

That came out alot more harsh then he had originally intended. But at least Vector got the message, as he just growled and nodded. Vector wasn't going into that fleet himself, but he definitely wasn't happy about Silver being in control.

To break the awkward silence though, Knuckles had suddenly walked into the room. Vector was now officially scared of the echidna, as he knew Knuckles blamed him for the Master Emerald being stolen. He didn't know what to expect, Vector couldn't jump off the plane.

"Hello Vector, Silver," Knuckles said suprisingly calm.

"Hey," Vector and Silver both said in return.

"Say um Silver, could you give Vector and I a moment to chat?" Knuckles asked.

Vector's nerves had just sky-rocketted. Silver nodded and quickly walked out of the room to the back on the silver plane. It was just Knuckles and Vector now, a confrontation that was long overdue to the echidna.

"Okay Vector, I have something to ask ya," Knuckles said.

"L-listen Knuckles, I'm sorry the Master Emerald got stolen!" Vector desperately cried. "It wasn't my fault though! This figure covered in a black coat came over to Angel Island right before you returned and stole the Master Emerald! It was way too fast for me to catch, the Master Emerald was gone before I knew it! I'm really sorry Knuckles, please don't do anything to me that'll hurt too much!"

Knuckles had listened to Vector's story very carefully. He then said, "Thanks Vector."

Vector was definitely taken aback by Knuckles' comment. Thanks? Maybe the echidna just happened to be in a good mood. Vector though, being a natural detective, preferred some specifics. "Thanks?" he asked.

"I finally have some clue on who would take the Master Emerald," Knuckles said. "Vector, we go way back, so I trust ya if you say there wasn't anything you can do. Likewise, I'm realizing now you may be big but you probably couldn't even stop a rat from stealing the Master Emerald."

"That's right...hey!" Vector hated being made fun of. Vector could fight, if he had taken the time to. He had the strength, his body was in pretty good shape. But, Vector thought his priorities were in taking as many jobs as possible to gain more rings, whether he could handle them or not.

But the clue wasn't much to Knuckles. Anyone could've came to Angel Island in a black cloak and steal the Master Emerald. Vector didn't say it shattered the Master Emerald though, so it most likely wasn't its intention to shatter it. But he questioned then whether going to Eggman was the right thing to do now. Why would Eggman dress his robots in a black cloak? That wasn't very Eggman like.

**Sonic**

The main control room had lights everywhere, and was obviously at the front of the plane. It was still mainly silver colored, but there were lights all over the controls, most of them probably buttons. Tails was driving the plane to the best of his ability, trying to get to Eggman's most recently unvieled fleet.

Sonic stood a little far behind him, taking in all the sights that this once 8 year old kid was able to build by himself. Maybe he had robots like Eggman did, but this was still pretty impressive to Sonic. Tails really did get that much smarter.

"Wow Tails, I never thought you could build something like this!" Sonic said.

Tails smiled, almost appreciating that comment from Sonic. "Oh, it was nothing really," Tails said. "I just gave my robots some plans, and we worked together to make this plane. Likewise, it's definitely not as big as that fleet from Eggman, but I'm sure we can still substain enough damage to infiltrate it."

"Well, I never thought I'd ever be impressed by ya again buddy," Sonic said. "But I gotta hand it to ya, you really outdid yourself this time!"

Tails turned around and saw that Sonic had given him a thumbs up. Tails slowly smiled, and nodded. Tails turned back to continue controlling the plane. Tails thought it was finally beginning to feel like old times. Impressing Sonic always had made him feel good inside. He looked up to him alot before, and a part of him still did to this very day.

Sonic thought it was nice to finally see Tails smiling again. Looks like whatever tension there was between them, Sonic was doing something right as it finally started to go away on this adventure. But still, Sonic wanted to talk about whatever tension there could be. It was way too noticeable before, and it left a deep hole inside him that needed to be filled. Maybe some small talk could improve their relationship a little more.

"So Tails, was there anything significant that happened to ya these past five years?" Sonic asked.

Tails thought Sonic would have never asked. Tails thought it was a better time then ever to try to impress Sonic even more, tell him what he had been missing out on. Make him feel bad for missing all of his life changing moments.

"Well, where do I start?" Tails asked. "Well, shortly after the events of the Space Colony Ark, the president had offered me a job in the technology and engineering field as an intern. He said I was the youngest person he had offered the job to, being only eight years old. I happily accepted the job, as I knew I could learn a ton of stuff from the job.

"So I got started. At first, I was just doing useless things like getting coffee for people that were ranked higher and making sure they attend certain meetings. But then there was this one meeting I was asked to come to to bring coffee into from the kitchen. It was about 2 months into the job. They were actually discussing ways to conserve energy in today's vehicles. I've actually been beginning plans to make a Tornado 3 at this time, but it was very very early in its stages. But I actually had the perfect idea that really contributed to the meeting.

"I was nervous about just going to the table and saying my ideas as an intern. And I didn't think they'd take me very seriously being an 8 year old. But I presented them my idea, and they all absolutely loved it! So, ever since then, I would keep trying to contribute to the meetings and they loved most of my ideas. I eventually was able to climb up to vice president of the establishment! Alot of today's accomplishments in technology is really thanks to me!"

Before Tails could continue on with his story though, he had looked out the window and realized that they had finally reached their target destination. Eggman's fleet was right in front of them.

**Shadow**

This is it. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Finally, it was time to come out of the shadows, and show the world that it would be useless to stand up against him. Dr. Eggman knew that this was a time of only celebration, as he flew above the city with his new fleet, hoping to make the crowd feel nothing but absolute shock and fear.

Eggman sat in the control room, looking happier than ever. He couldn't believe after a month of hiding and staying undercover, he could finally show the world why he was the greatest villian in the world. He always seemed to love having all the attention, it made him feel like he was making quite the impact. Whether it was good or bad attention.

Shadow and Omega stood behind the doctor as he was guiding the ship to the top of Station Square. They would look out the windows a bit, and see the faces of the people who realize they were suddenly under something blocking out all the light. They all looked very frightened, some dropped their bags from the market and didn't even notice their apples rolling into the sewers.

"Oh ho ho ho!" Eggman laughed. "This is it you two! I am going to announce to the public just exactly who they're messing with!" Shadow and Omega nodded, knowing exactly what Eggman was going to do.

A microphone suddenly came up from the controls in front of Eggman. Eggman stood up, took the microphone out of its stand, and began speaking to Station Square.

"Citizens of Station Square!" Eggman began to say. "If you are listening to this, then you have now realized that the notorious Dr. Eggman is back! This is a warning to you all that if you do not surrender to the Eggman Empire, I will force you all to fall under my control, and you'll be forced to adore me like no other! After five long years being stuck in that prison, I'm back and this time, I WILL not fail! Muh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Eggman then smashed the switch right next to the mike stand with his right hand, and suddenly all sorts of bombs began to drop onto the city. People began screaming running for their lives as one bomb after another detonated in the city. None of these bombs made a giant explosion, but they certainly were injuring people.

Eggman put down his mic, and let out another one of his famous evil laughs. "I'm back baby, and I'm not going away for another five whole years!" He declared.

"That was a wonderful speech my master," Shadow said. It really was what Shadow thought too, he actually seemed a little happy for Eggman. But now maybe was the time to finally get some answers out of him.

"Why thank you Shadow," Eggman said. "With you two on my side and this giant fleet, nothing is going to stop us from complete world domination!"

Shadow nodded. But he knew he couldn't wait another minute. It was time to ask Eggman for some more answers. He seemed trustworthy enough to Shadow, and he was the only one he felt comfortable sharing his thoughts to. "Master, would you allow me to ask you a few more questions?"

Eggman turned around in his chair and nodded. "Why, of course Shadow, what would you like to know?"

Shadow walked up to the doctor and began to ask. "What was I doing in that capsule before? Why was I in there?"

Eggman smiled, then said, "Well Shadow, it's simple. Five years ago, one of my robots had found you while I was in prison. He was my assisstant. E-200. I had been working on him for awhile, but he apparently was able to release himself as he got out and saved you while I was in prison. He put you in that capsule to heal your body, which had taken up a ton of damage. When I escaped the prison, E-200 told me all about you, before he collapsed due to the lack of matienance. But that's it really. You were saved by one of my creations!"

A ton of damage? That sounded strange. What could have happened to him five years ago? "Damage? What damaged me?"

"Un un un, that's enough for now Shadow," Eggman said. "Once you bring me another Chaos Emerald, I will be glad to answer some more questions."

Shadow sighed, just when he was finally getting some answers, he was told to find yet another Chaos Emerald.

Shadow didn't have time to wallow though, as the alarm system suddenly turned on. It only ever did this if an intruder was approaching, or if something else was terribly wrong with the system. Eggman took a look at the screen in front of him, only to find this white plane coming closer and closer to the fleet.

"Gah!" Eggman yelped. "That has to be Sonic and his friends! Omega, go take control of the laser cannons. Shadow, you go downstairs and order my hentchmen to get ready! Omega, we're going to blast that plane into bits!"

**Amy**

Remember in the last episode when a certain pink hedgehog and a white bat were taken onto Eggman's fleet? Well, they certainly were not in the same area as they were before. Infact, they were basically in an even worst situation, and here is why.

Amy and Rouge were still tied up, but this time, their feet weren't even on the ground. And this time, they were no longer against the pole. The room was quite large in itself, colored red, and the temperature felt like one hundred degrees to the girls. But why is this you ask? The girls were tied up in the air, and under them was gigantic pot of lava.

"I can't believe that stupid robot tied us up here!" Amy complained.

Rouge laughed, Amy sounded pretty scared. While she actually wasn't. "Oh, don't be such a baby," Rouge said.

"Well, you can fly so you have no idea how I'm feeling!" Amy shouted. "I hate how Eggman is basically going to use us to scare Sonic into following his orders."

"Don't worry honey, Sonic would never bow down to the doctor. If he actually does come to save us, he'll find some way to trick that eggy. The guy knows him better then even me, who spent a good amount of time with him."

Rouge did have a point. Eggman has finally been discovered, and there was no doubt Sonic was going to do whatever it took to stop him. Still, being on top of a bowl of lava was enough to scare Amy tons. She did not want to be anywhere near that life-threatening material. Amy didn't trust Rouge either, so she didn't trust that Rouge would save her. Despite the fact Rouge has been working for an organization whose job is to save lives.

"Well, can you at least promise to save me if Eggman does drop us?" Amy asked.

"Sure, if you were to give me your Chaos Emerald," Rouge said.

Amy sighed, that was the typical answer she expected. But then, she realized something strange about what Rouge had just said. "Wait, how do you know I have a Chaos Emerald? It's not with me, it's actually in my house right now."

"You really think I'm dumb don't ya?" Amy nodded her head to answer her question, still looking quite annoyed.

"Well little miss sunshine, part of my job at GUN is to keep track of the Chaos Emeralds, so I'm supposed to know where each emerald is at all times. However, one emerald has gone missing ever since Eggman escaped from prison, and the other just went somewhere. I have absolutely no idea where those two emeralds are. I've seen you holding that emerald a few times these past few months, what have you been doing with that red emerald Amy? It's not like you're good enough to use its powers."

"None of your business!" Amy said angirly. "So, you've been spying on me?"

Rouge nodded to respond. Amy then turned her head away from Rouge, pissed that this girl was not only a thieve, but also spyed at times when she thought she was alone.

**Sonic/Silver**

"Brace yourselves everyone! It's gonna be a rocky landing!" Tails screamed.

They were about to penetrate the fleet. Everyone was in the main control room looking out at the fleet in front of them. They could see the people running away from the bombs if they were to look down. It was grade A destruction, but it wasn't going to stop these heroes.

"W-watch out!" Sonic shouted.

All five of them suddenly had spotted a rocket coming towards their plane from the fleet. Tails flew west, and avoided the rocket. But more of them kept coming, so Tails kept moving west to east, east to west even more.

Everyone but Tails began to feel a little dizzy from all the moving around, even Sonic. He could run fast, but he wasn't used to being upside up one second, and upside down the next second. Maybe in loops, but those only took a few seconds. It was obviously Tails flew this thing many times before, being all used to it and all.

"H-hey Tails, t-think you can stop trying to make us throw up?" Knuckles asked.

"Woahhhhhh, it feels like the room is being sucked into a black hole!" Silver cried.

"I better get paid ALOT for this!" Vector complained.

"Quit complaining you guys, if I weren't doing this, we'd be falling to our deaths into Station Square!" Tails cried.

Suddenly, robot after robot came flying from the ship heading towards the plane. They began to start shooting bullets at the plane, causing Tails to have to move faster even more. But he still kept progressing, and he even destroyed some of the robots himself using some of the planes own weapons.

"Are you guys ready?" Tails asked.

"So we just jump out once we're over the fleet and charge in?" Silver asked, just making sure he had understood the plan the first time. Tails nodded to him in return, so Silver felt more assured now without a doubt. It was almost time to finally get his job done.

"Remember guys, it's crucial you get out," Tails said. "I will be transforming this plane into its battle form and I can't say you'll feel very comfortable if you stay in here."

Everyone knew exactly what Tails meant. When the plane is in battle mode, it most likely is alot smaller than it is in the form of a plane. No one wanted to die aboard a plane because it decided to shrink everything but the living being itself. All four of them got to the spot where they would be released, and were preparing for a landing on the fleet. Vector especially, as he actually was sitting on Silver's back. Silver thought the crocodile was very heavy.

The plane gets closer to the fleet. 6 feet from the ground, a hole on the floor of the plane finally opens, and all four of them jump out of the plane, and charge into the fleet, smashing all robots and weapons in their way. Tails follows them shortly, as his plane shortly changes into its battle form, which looked similar to the mech he used five years ago with the Tornado 2. But much more intimidating in looks.

**Shadow**

Shadow nods in the dark blue room as all the hentchmen began to head to the upper floor to try and halt the intruders. Shadow wondered if he should go and join them. Maybe he would do it in a little bit. But right now, he just wanted to prepare himself for a bit before going out there and encountering those people again.

He wondered if he was making the right decision trusting the doctor. The doctor seemed like a very devious person, and he could definitely see why the doctor may seem untrustworthy to many people. He seemed to be hated by the majority of the world actually, if he felt no guilt to just bomb the city like that.

But, the doctor saved his life if what he said is true. Sure, it was a robot, but the doctor invented the robot, and the doctor's materials were used to heal him to health. Besides, Shadow didn't feel comfortable putting trust into anyone else. He was often a loner, it took alot for him to give all his trust to someone.

He remembers his awakening like it happened five minutes ago. It was strange seeing that hedgehog, fox, and bat in front of him. They seemed to be very shocked that he was infront of them for whatever reason. He also remembered, there was just something that triggered him to attack them. He wasn't even going to initially attack them at first. But something told him to do it, something in his head made him do it. And he just didn't know what.

There was a monitor near Shadow. Shadow thought it would be interesting to maybe just browse through some of Eggman's files. He wasn't intentionally wanting to sniff around, just curious about some of the doctor's plans.

Why was Dr. Eggman making him work for his memory? Why did he want the Chaos Emeralds? And why didn't this make him trust him any less? Dr. Eggman made it clear that he was not a very trustworthy person, but for some reason, this had the opposite effect on Shadow. Eggman acts exactly like who he is, and in a way, that kinda is trustworthy if Eggman sticks to who he is.

Shadow felt like his trust towards Eggman was justified enough. There were more reasons to trust him then to betray him. But suddenly, Shadow would be getting even more confused by the doctor. As he did enough snooping on the monitor to find out a very questionable text document. It was titled, "The Shadow Project."

Shadow immediately tried to open the file, but it was unfortunately password protected. Shadow smashed his hand on the keyboard. He had no idea what the password could be and he certainly was not a professional computer hacker.

Suddenly though, he heard a voice through the intercom. "Shadow, head up to the arena room immediately, where Amy and Rouge are located!" Eggman said through it. "We're going to make sure Sonic and his friends know it was a big mistake to come here!"

Yeah, I'm coming is what Shadow thought. But he wasn't getting that file out of his head anytime soon.

**Sonic/Amy/Shadow**

Where had Silver and Vector gone? Sonic thought maybe they had other things to tend to. It doesn't matter, if Vector trusted that hedgehog, it was good enough to Sonic. Besides, he had other things to take care of. Like stopping Eggman's rampage on Station Square, and saving Amy and Rouge. Wow, he just realized he hadn't seen Amy in a few weeks, definitely a new record. He wondered what she had been up to to cause such a long time away from him. Even after five years of total rejection, Amy still loved Sonic.

Sonic, along with Tails and Knuckles, were now inside the super fleet. It was as dark and grim as it could get. Tons of robots stood in their way, but the three of them were blasting through, even Tails in his mech. This Tornado 3 version seemed to be able to keep up with Sonic and Knuckles.

Hmm, a figure in a black cloak. It definitely seemed strange to Knuckles. But maybe he could punch an answer out of Eggman this time around if he got the chance. He now thought his time was better spent looking for the Master Emerald pieces though. Nonetheless though, he was already here, he might as well help.

Finally, after rounds of robots, the trio came into this giant red arena like room, which felt ten times hotter than the previous room. All three of them stopped in their tracks, surprised by the heat.

"Woah!" Sonic said. "This room sure is toasty!"

"Sonic!" screamed a very familiar voice to Sonic.

All three of them looked up to see who had screamed Sonic's name. They figured out who it was immediately when they saw her face, as the voice came from Amy Rose, with Rouge the Bat tied up next to her.

"Amy! Rouge!" Tails said.

"Are you two tied up above a pot of lava?" Knuckles asked, hearing sounds of lava very close to his ears.

"Wow, it must've took all of your strength to figure that out," Rouge said, smiling.

Knuckles looked at Rouge annoyed. The bat girl had always been annoying to Knuckles, even after five years of mostly isolation. Sometimes, she would come and steal the Master Emerald, but those visits became more and more rare as time progressed.

On the inside, Amy was jumping for joy. Finally, her ticket out of here was here, and even better was that it was Sonic. Whenever Sonic saved her, she always couldn't help but feel sparks were flying.

It was too bad those feelings quickly evaporated with fear replacing them, as Amy and Rouge were suddenly lowered closer to the lava. They both screamed thinking they were pluging towards death.

"Not so fast Sonic!" screamed a familiar menace to everyone in the room. All five of them turned their bodies and heads around, and saw that it was Dr. Eggman who spouted such words, sitting in his pod along with Shadow and Omega, who stood right behind him.

"Eggman!" All five of them shouted.

"One more step and the girls get to swim in a sizzling pool of lava!" Eggman shouted. He then followed it up with another very evil laugh.

"You're an idiot you know that?" Amy asked sounding very angry about the possibility Sonic will have to follow Eggman's orders all because of her and Rouge.

"If I were so dumb, why do I hold the power to end your life?" Eggman asked with a devious smile.

Amy couldn't help it. The fact that Eggman could end her life scared her to death. Rouge actually felt the same way, as her boots were a feet or two away from the lava.

Sonic was both frustrated and excited by the current situation. He didn't know what to do to save Amy and Rouge and defeat Eggman. But at the same time, he hadn't felt this much excitement in such a long time. He loved that he had a purpose again to stop Eggman's plans. But at the same time, he had to save Amy and Rouge one way or another.

He wasn't really going to kill them, was he? This was the question Shadow was asking himself. He had saved those two for a reason, so maybe they just had to stay alive. There was just something about those two that sparked something in his mind. But if Eggman decided to get rid of those two, there was nothing he could do.

"What do you want Eggman?" Sonic asked.

"If you give me what I need, I'll spare those two just for you," Eggman said.

"Well, what is it?"

"Your Chaos Emerald."

Sonic's eyes opened up all of a sudden. Chaos Emerald? He doesn't remember having a Chaos Emerald. "I'm sorry to disappoint ya egghead, but we have no Chaos Emerald!" Sonic then followed that sentence with a small chuckle.

"You don't." Eggman suddenly looked over at Tails in the background, causing a domino effect with everyone's eyes doing the same thing.

**Silver**

Meanwhile in another area of the fleet, Silver and Vector were looking for something. Something that could get the other two Chaotix members out of the Virtual Reality program. They hope that they made the right decision coming to the fleet instead of just staying and looking in the base.

The two of them weren't talking much while they were running. The status of their relationship was pretty clear at this point after Silver's outburst. It was pretty awkward, hopefully Espio and Charmy could ease the tensions once they were reunited with them. But it was hard to tell, Vector was now extremely suspicious of Silver. It was natural with him being a detective and all.

Silver didn't actually mean to be so harsh. At the beginning of all this, he actually seemed pretty calm to the Chaotix. But as he got closer to finding Eggman, he seemed to get more and more aggressive. He also just didn't know what else to do to shut Vector up. He could not let anyone know who he really was, and Vector was no exception. Besides, what's important to him was to stop Dr. Eggman, which he was so close to doing at this point.

He didn't know why he was helping Vector. He already knew something was up with him. Why didn't he just go off and do his own thing and leave him by himself? Then again, there was just this part of Silver that felt bad for Vector. He couldn't blame him for wanting to know more about him. The least he could do was help his friends since he dragged them into this mess too. Maybe he'd tell them who he really was eventually. But he didn't have time to think about it. He just had to find and kill Dr. Eggman.

Suddenly, the two had entered a room which seemed to be a dead end. But it looked a bit suspicious, as there was this giant monitor at the end, with tall tubes all around the room. Strange room indeed, but maybe it was what they were looking for.

Silver walked over to the monitor and clicked on the button that looked like the on switch to the monitor. Silver was actually correct, as the monitor immediately turned on. Silver and Vector's mouths then widened, as they saw Espio and Charmy running from the robots.

"This is the room that connects to the simulation!" Vector concluded.

"Well, do you think you can figure out how to take them out?" Silver asked.

Vector nodded. "Of course, I'm actually a pretty smart croc, this will be no problem!"

Vector immediately then got to work, typing on the computer like a madman. Espio may be clever, but he felt he was the real brains of the group. He lead the team afterall, so logically, he's obviously the smartest of the bunch. He didn't seem to show any signs of trouble at all, he was working the computer like a whiz.

Espio and Charmy were still running from robots on the screen. They looked very scared and confused. Could they had started figuring out it was all a simulation too? Or was there some kind of glitch in the system? It didn't matter, Vector just had to get them out of there.

"This should do it!" Vector said. Vector then slammed his fist on the big red button, and two tubes suddenly began to light up. Vector and Silver shifted their attention towards the tubes. The lights inside them kept on going, moving around like little pinballs going at 200 mph. But then the lights disappeared, and Espio and Charmy suddenly appeared.

"Espio! Charmy!" Vector said, as he ran to the tubes and opened them up, letting Espio and Charmy exit.

"What, where are we?" Charmy asked. "Where have you two been?"

"Now's not the time for questions guys, Eggman is here," Silver began to say. "Let's go and take care of this now!"

"Well, maybe an explanation would be kind of nice you know," Espio said.

Suddenly though, all the tubes began to light up. All four of them were shocked. What else could be coming in here from that virtual world? The answer came shortly, as robots from the hospital had suddenly appeared in those tubes. The four of them knew they had to leave immediately.

"Espio, we can answer your questions later, but we better get out of here now!" Silver shouted. The Chaotix agreed, and they all quickly exited the room, with robots following them.

**Sonic/Shadow/Amy/Silver**

Eggman looked at Tails, as if expecting Tails to know exactly what he meant by the look. Tails unfortunately, did know what Eggman meant. But Tails debated whether to lie to Eggman and his friends, or just admit he has a Chaos Emerald. Tails was never the best liar in the world, and he always felt uncomfortable doing it. He preferred just staying in the background when they had to lie. But now he was the one that had to do it.

Tails just decided to go with his gut feeling. "Why are you looking at me?" Tails asked.

"Oh Tails, there's no need to lie in front of me!" Eggman said. "My fleet sensed some very powerful chaos energy in here, and I know that if you had an emerald, you'd power your contraption with it!"

"Contraption?" Tails seemed to had gotten a temper these past five years to Sonic. Maybe you got more defensive as you got older was what Sonic thought.

"So, what's it going to be Tails? The Chaos Emerald, or your friends?"

Rouge and Amy were suddenly lowered down to the lava a feet more, causing even more screams from them. Tails just didn't know. Eggman could be very dangerous with a Chaos Emerald, but he knew he had to make sure Amy and Rouge were safe, or he would never forgive himself. He just...didn't know.

"I-I'll..."

Eggman looked at Tails very intensely, still keeping up that smile. But he then looked up to Amy and Rouge for a second and realized something was very strange about the image. "They're gone!" Eggman shouted.

Everyone turned to where Amy and Rouge originally were, and saw that the two were no longer suspended above the pot of lava. Eggman looked very worried all of a sudden. Who could've saved them when these three weren't moving an inch of their body? Shadow and Omega were on guard now, knowing something fishy had just happened.

Suddenly, a robot flew over the three heroes, looking to had been just tossed, then hitting Eggman's pod. There was also a green glow on the robot.

"Silver?" Sonic asked.

Silver was behind Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, along with the Chaotix, Amy, and Rouge. Silver, Amy, and Rouge looked downright pissed, while the Chaotix looked ready as ever to fight.

"Grr, egg pawns, Shadow, and Omega, attack!" Eggman shouted, as he quickly tried to escape the scene.

"Sonic, Tails, go after Eggman, we'll take care of everything here!" Rouge shouted.

Sonic and Tails nodded in agreement, and quickly moved forward to where Eggman was going. But unnoticed by everyone as the fights between good and evil had begun, Silver had gone and followed the two a little later. Eggman was his, he kept on thinking that in his head.

**Sonic/Silver**

Eggman kept on going as fast as he could in the hallways, but Sonic was just alot faster, as Sonic jumped and kicked Eggman's pod to the ground. Eggman tried to get his pod up, but Sonic was already standing on it. Tails couldn't keep up, but he was almost there.

"No, it will not end like this!" Eggman shouted.

"Guess again egghead," Sonic said, feeling very accomplished. "You're going to jail again eggy, and this time forever!"

"Oh, but is that what you REALLY want Sonic?" Eggman strangely asked.

Sonic was confused by Eggman's question. He wondered what Eggman had exactly meant by that. He wanted some answers before taking him to jail for good. "What do you mean?"

Eggman smiled, as he looked up to Sonic from his damaged pod. "My robot, E-200, told me how you faded from the public's eye once I went to jail. There were news articles everywhere on the internet on how you basically threw your life away when I went away, because without me, your life served no purpose. You were just another normal hedgehog no one gave a damn about. But now I'm finally free, and you want to take away the chance to be something important again? Your logic makes no sense my friend."

Sonic was absolutely shocked. Eggman was an evil person, but he never seemed to be so manipulative that Eggman would attempt to manipulate Sonic. But...Sonic thought about it. What happens from here on if Eggman were to go to jail? He would go back to the way it was, feeling useless, like he had no place in the world. Ever since Eggman had came back, he's felt alot better about himself. Did Eggman have a point? "Y-you..."

"No need to say anything my adversary."

"Sonic!" Tails screamed as his mech came running into the hallway. "What are you waiting for Sonic? Cuff him with the handcuffs!"

But Sonic didn't listen to Tails, he just stood there, and looked at Eggman's face, wondering if there was any truth to Eggman's words. His mind was racing right now. Two choices, both racing to the center of his brain to choose what Sonic should do. But the longer he waited, the less choice he had.

"Sonic! What are you doing? Cuff him already!" Tails screamed in anger and frustration, seeing Eggman prepare for an attack.

"I...I...I can't!" Sonic finally admitted.

"What?" Tails screamed.

Eggman suddenly shot a rocket at both Sonic and Tails, and they both fell back, as his pod got back into the air and was preparing to finish his exit. _What did I just do?_ Sonic thought. He really had just let the biggest threat to world peace escape. Something that Sonic had previously stood for. But now that it was five years later, had he really changed that much? Did he really grow to be that selfish?

But all of a sudden, Sonic and Tails saw Silver fly straight past them at a fast speed. Eggman stopped and turned around, and saw that Silver was charging right at him. Eggman screamed, as he knew he wasn't going to convince Silver to let him go. Silver punched Eggman's pod into the ground. Eggman and his pod were now on the ground, waiting for Silver's wrath.

"This ends...TODAY!" Silver shouted.

Silver took out a part of the floor, which looked to be made out of metal. He then used his powers and morphed it into a ball. He screamed, as he threw the rock onto Eggman's pod, as Eggman screamed for his life like he never did before. Eggman was dead, finally dead. Everyone could rest at last, we were all a step closer to world peace. Sonic and Tails just stared, shocked out of their minds.

But as the smoke from the attack cleared, the pod appeared to be heavily damaged, but Eggman on the other hand, was scar free! Still looking very scared! His image suddenly began to turn into this holographic like image, slowly disappearing along with the smoke a few seconds later. Silver was absolutely baffled.

"THIS IS A FREAKING HOLOGRAM!" Silver shouted in anger.

**Sonic/Shadow/Amy/Silver**

Amy smashed robot after robot. None of the robots seemed to be very challenging to destroy, not with her trusty hammar. No one knew where she kept her hammars, but she was able to take it out whenever she had to. She was a fighter at heart, and she seemed to have improved since the last time she had to fight. She took care of each robot like it was trash.

Shadow and Omega fought whoever they could. No one could even lay an inch on them. Not Knuckles, not Rouge, not Amy, not Espio, not Charmy, not Vector, no one. They were the only reason all of them were actually got a little tired. The robots really only seemed to be distractions from Shadow and Omega.

But suddenly, the fleet began to rumble, causing everyone to pause their fights in the hot boiling lava room. It felt like an intense earthquake, but they were in the air!

"What's going on?" Amy asked.

"Omega, it's time!" Shadow shouted. Omega nodded, and Shadow suddenly took out two Chaos Emeralds that were from the desert base as Omega stood close to him. "It's been fun, but we need to leave this destined to fall fleet everyone. CHAOS..."

"No!" Rouge shouted, as she quickly ran over to Shadow and Omega and grabbed onto them right before Shadow finished off by saying, "CONTROL!" And at that second, Shadow, Rouge, and Omega all disappeared.

"Rouge!" Amy shouted.

"What the hell was she thinking?" Knuckles asked.

Suddenly, the rumbling got even worst, as everyone began to slightly lose their balance.

"What's going on?" Charmy asked.

"The fleet must be experiencing some kind of malfunction!" Espio concluded.

"BLAHHHHH, I'M GONNA THROW UP!" Vector shouted.

Suddenly, Sonic, Tails, and Silver came running from the hallways and into the red room, all barely keeping their balance.

"W-what's going on?" Silver asked.

"If I'm correct, then this is the end of this fleet, as its new destination is crashing into Station Square!" Tails shouted.

Everyone knew it then, this fleet was crashing into Station Square, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. They all tried to run to escape from the fleet. It was better then staying in a room with lava when the fleet crashes. But either way, it was going to be a bumpy landing. The fleet is crashing into Station Square.

**Sonic/Silver/Amy**

It was approaching nightime in Station Square, and the past hour felt like nothing but a horrid nightmare. Tons of Station Square buildings had been heavily damaged. People were still looking for shelter, as their original home was probably damaged by the bombs. But now, there was no use in hiding from a fleet half the size of the city. It came closer, and closer, and closer to the ground.

It touches the ground, and a gigantic explosion happens, wrecking the entire city filling it with fires and smoke. The fleet must've also been some kind of bomb, considering the mass destruction it had then caused. It turned a dark blue night into a red night. The city was now nothing but ruins, some almost unfixable...

**Conclusion**

The fleet was a giant bomb in reality, and Station Square experienced its full wrath. What will Tails think of Sonic seeing him actually let Eggman go? Where does Knuckles go from here knowing that Eggman is probably not behind the Master Emerald being shattered? What has Amy exactly been doing with a Chaos Emerald? Where are Shadow, Rouge, Omega, and Eggman now? Where will Silver and Vector go from here, and will Espio and Charmy know what Vector heard Silver said? What will be the effect on the explosion on everyone? All this on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs!


	8. City in Ruins

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

All four of our hedgehogs were on Eggman's newest fleet, and it sure was quite the event.

Amy was tied up on top of a giant pot of lava along with Rouge. But thanks to the heroes of the night, their lives were spared. Where will Amy go from here on now that she is free?

Shadow knew all along what Eggman was going to do, and was able to escape the crashing fleet as soon as it began to rumble. But what will he do when he discovers Rouge had came along with him?

Vector only grows even more suspicious of Silver, and Silver only grows more and more impatient to eliminate Eggman for good. What will he do now that he knows that the Eggman on that fleet was nothing but a hologram?

Sonic wasn't able to handcuff Eggman once he had gotten him for some reason. How will this effect Sonic himself knowing what he had done? And what will Tails think of Sonic having observed it all?

**Sonic/Amy**

It sure was a bumpy landing, and the city surely looked like a lost cause at this point. Station Square was absolutely ruined. It was amazing how all it took was just one madman to cause so much destruction. Eggman was no doubt back, and the message was now more clear than ever. Likewise, this was no where near the damage Perfect Chaos had inflicted, but it still sucked that after going through all that, Station Square STILL wasn't safe from the madman.

Amy was outside of the fleet, as she laid on the hard concrete floor looking very helpless. She should've known Eggman would've done something like this. But the question was, what was he accomplishment from doing this? She didn't know, she wondered if Eggman had escaped in time. She tried to get up, but it was taking some time.

Meanwhile nearby, Sonic and Tails laid next to each other, both looking pretty beat up from the sudden crash. Tails' Tornado 3 was next to him, and it looked heavily damaged. They both got up slowly. When Tails' eyes met Sonic's, he turned away and took a look at his Tornado 3.

Sonic felt the resentment immediately from Tails. What Tails saw Sonic do on the fleet must've seemed pretty clear to him. Just when things were becoming a little less tense between him and Tails, now ther friendship seemed to be evaporating more with each passing second. Sonic had to do something, he couldnt just walk away and let that happen.

"Look Tails I...," he began to say.

"Sonic, stop," Tails interrupted.

"Look Tails, I can explain!"

"No Sonic, you can lie. But I know exactly what happened up there and you do too!" Sonic's worst fears were confirmed. Tails was able to interpret what had happened up there perfectly.

Tails struggled to say more. But he just had to get all this baggage out in the open, as it seemed like the right time to lay it all out there. "You were being selfish Sonic."

"Selfish?"

"Yes Sonic, SELFISH! Something I never thought you could become. It was bad enough you stopped caring about yourself, your friends, and the world five years ago when you just stopped talking to all of us just because your glory days were gone with Eggman being in jail! But now that he's back, there's only one person who's gained your caring back, and that's you. I know exactly what that was all about Sonic."

"Tails..."

"You 'couldn't' go and cuff Eggman because you missed your days as being that blue hero that everyone loved because he would save the day everytime there was trouble. Instead of putting the world's wanting for peace over your interests, you, for the first time ever, decided to do the exact OPPOSITE!"

"No, I can explain Tails..."

"THERE'S NO NEED TO EXPLAIN SONIC! Do you know how hurt I was when you decided to stop visiting me in my workshop? And how hurt I was when I tried to visit you, and it felt like you didn't want my presence at all? No you don't Sonic, because all you care about now is YOURSELF! The Sonic I looked up to would have NEVER isolated himself from all of his friends! But hey, people change don't they? It just sucks it had to be you...because you were once the big brother I looked up to. But now, I don't even know you anymore..."

And with that finally out in the open, Tails ran off, with Sonic reaching his hand out for him to come back. But Tails wouldn't come back, at least not for awhile. Was Tails right? Was he really being selfish for the first time in his life? There had to be a better explanation as to why he did what he had done. But...he just didn't have that answer.

Amy, hearing all the commotion, but not really able to understand all the words, came over quickly to Sonic to see what was going on. "Sonic, what happened?" she asked. "It sounded like you two were fighting."

Sonic turned around, realizing that Amy didn't hear the entire fight. So at least she was on his side, for now at least. "Look Amy, I really don't want to talk about it right now," Sonic answered, not wanting to lie to Amy at the moment.

Amy wanted to keep pestering him for the answer, but all of a sudden, she noticed that someone was stuck under a hard rock behind Sonic. The figure had peach colored fur, and rabbit ears.

"CREAM!" Amy shouted in distress as she ran over to her. Amy lifted the rock above Cream, and saw that Cream was losing alot of blood. Amy then turned around to Sonic. "SONIC! Help me take Cream to the hospital!"

**Sonic/Amy**

Sonic was as fast as ever and quickly got Cream into the hospital. There were alot of people there, but Sonic didn't even notice them as he sped by. Amy tried to keep up with Sonic, but she felt bad having to cut all those people, who really looked like they were in need of aid. It wasn't like she needed aid anyway though. The only bruises she had on her would heal by themselves quickly. Amy knew how to treat wounds. It definitely was a good idea to get to the outside of the fleet before the collision.

The inside of the hospital seemed to have alot of damage, and people were everywhere trying to either treat injuries or get treated. It was a pretty sad sight to both Sonic and Amy. Is this what the hospitals looked like when Chaos had been executing his rampage on here? The damage here was nowhere near as powerful as Chaos was either, in their eyes at least.

Sonic found the front desk hidden in the hundreds of people in the damaged hospital. Everyone on the desk seemed to be busy, but one of them was able to take notice of the blue hedgehog. It was a girl, who looked very tense. "Are you Sonic the hedgehog?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Sonic replied. "I know you all are really busy at the moment but, my friend here is unconcious from the crash. Can you take her in?"

The woman nodded in return. "I'm sure we can find some room somewhere, her injuries seem much more serious then most of the people here actually. But I'm sure she'll be fine once she gets treated. Take her to Room 403."

Sonic nodded his head and said, "Thanks!"

Amy had finally caught up to Sonic getting through a pretty angry crowd. She was amazed Sonic managed to get through so quickly. But then again, it was Sonic. Who she thought would always amaze no matter how long one knows him. "Sonic!" Amy said. "Can they get Cream a room?" 

Sonic nodded, and Amy smiled in return. She always loved being around Sonic, especially when he seemed very caring.

Later on, Cream was in her room and a doctor was finally checking up on her. It seemed to take forever for a doctor to finally get in there, but he finally made it in, and he began a close examination on Cream's condition. Amy stared looking very nervous, while Sonic looked with a pretty serious face.

"How is she doing doctor?" Amy asked.

The doctor looked up after finishing his examination, sporting a white coat, but with blood stains on it. "She's been badly injured," he began. "She must've been right under the fleet when it crashed. She should be very lucky, it's hard to survive a crash like that, but she'll be okay. I inserted some medications into her body and she should be ready to go by tomorrow morning actually. She shouldn't push her body too hard for awhile, but she'll heal naturally."

Amy sighed in relief, and Sonic smiled at the doctor. They were both very happy that Cream was okay.

"Does Cream have a guardian?" The doctor asked. "Maybe you should tell her to come over here, or check to see if she's alright as well."

Amy nodded and said, "I'll take care of that." The doctor nods in return and then exits the room.

Amy quickly turned to Sonic and was about to give Sonic a hug out of happiness of seeing him again, saying, "Oh Sonic, thank you for all of your..."

But Sonic stepped back and blocked out the hug, as he definitely wasn't in the mood for it at the moment. Sonic had other things on his mind afterall. "Um Amy, I have to go, tell Cream I said hi," Sonic said. Sonic then quickly walked out of the room, leaving Amy feeling quite rejected. Why couldn't Sonic love her back the way she loved him?

**Silver/Sonic**

Back outside on the crash sight, Silver and the Chaotix actually looked fine despite the crash. There weren't many bruises on them at all. They all definitely seemed to have pretty tough skin. Still, they were exhausted, it was a long day afterall. Silver was actually helping to repair some of the damages, using his powers to put some of the buildings back together. It would obviously take more to rebuild the city though. But Silver wanted to do something.

As Silver was doing what he was doing, he thought about what had happened in that fleet. Why did Eggman pull all that off? Eggman was apparantly a hologram, so the real Eggman was still out there. What was the point of it all though? Did it serve as a distraction? Or is there something even more contrived going on here? Silver didn't know, and he hated that.

He also wondered what he was now going to do about Vector. He had a bad feeling Vector would tell Espio and Charmy about his suspicions. But, he felt bad enough for even accepting their help in the first place. Silver had a good heart, and he knew these guys were in a tough situation. He actually had been gathering rings on the journey. There were alot of rings on the fleet actually. Eggman seemed pretty rich. Maybe Vector would drop it if he paid them a bit?

Silver stopped his rebuilding. There was just too much to think about. He should just drop these guys and find Eggman. But unfortunately, he still didn't know his way around here. He needed them, whether he liked it or not.

The Chaotix looked everywhere at all the destruction that a fat scientist had caused. It really was a sight to behold. World peace was threatened today. The message was very very clear. Eggman was a threat, a threat that was hiding somewhere. They worry about their own problems with paying rent, but if Eggman's destruction kept up, there would be no house to pay rent for.

"Amazing, so it was a simulation all this time?" Espio asked, referring to the false hospital all four of them had gotten stuck in.

Vector nodded and replied by saying, "Yep. But good old Vector here figured it out before any of you guys could!"

Espio hated to be outsmarted by Vector, as he often does come off as some kind of a baffoon to people. But Vector was obviously alot smarter then that. Still, it didn't do much for his image when Vector figured out something faster than he did. He was a ninja afterall. But Espio knew when to give credit when it was due. "I have to admit Vector, you came out on top this time. I should've listened to Silver when he started getting suspicious."

Silver. Vector forgot, Silver was still in their lives. And he was probably going to stay in their lives for awhile. Vector didn't exactly know what to do about Silver. Silver was basically a wild card at the moment. He was suspicious that Silver didn't have their best interests at heart. He wondered how he was going to tell Espio and Charmy, without sounding completely stupid.

Like, what was he going to tell them? Silver, the government agent, called Eggman some crazy name? He needed more information, as all he's really seen isn't much. But Silver's outburst on him made it clear that Silver was hiding something, and he wasn't going to give it up easily.

Closeby, Sonic had exited the hospital and was running quickly. He seemed to be looking for something, as he got closer and closer to the Chaotix and Silver. Sonic apparantly found what he had been looking for before he reached them though, as even closer to Sonic, was a familiar red echidna that was just staring at the incredible sight. Sonic walked up to Knuckles.

"This sure has been quite the day," Sonic said.

Knuckles nodded in agreement. "Yeah, who knew these days of searching for Eggman would ever lead to this?" he replied. "At least we were able to free Amy."

Sonic nodded. But then he had realized, Knuckles didn't mention the name of the other prisoner of Eggman. A familiar white bat that was supposed to be accompanying him and Tails on their mission to take Eggman back to prison. "What about Rouge?"

Knuckles sighed in annoyance, not always the one to enjoy talking about the annoying girl. "I don't know what's up with her, but she decided to go with Shadow and Omega and jumped into them when Shadow initiated Chaos Control. If you ask me, now the bat's crazy, making her much more of an annoyance then she already was."

Sonic couldn't help but chuckle. It's amazing after five years, the two still had this feud. Rouge just rubbed off people the wrong way. Sonic never minded Rouge, but maybe it was because he didn't have some giant green emerald she would keep trying to steal. "Well, maybe Rouge has some plans of her own. We should get some rest and then see GUN's building in this city in the morning. They might have some ideas of what to do next."

As Sonic was walking towards wherever to get a place to sleep, Knuckles actually said, "Um actually Sonic, I'm afraid we've reached a crossroads." Sonic turned around to face Knuckles, and listened to everything Knuckles had to say. "Vector told me this strange figure in a black cloak stole the Master Emerald. I don't know much more then I did before, but I know I'll have better luck getting some answers if I go and search for the Master Emerald pieces myself."

Sonic was a bit sad that Knuckles was going to split from him too. He was basically alone on this mission now. With Tails being mad, Rouge still with Eggman, and now Knuckles searching for the Master Emerald. Maybe he was the reason he was alone. He didn't let it show in his face though, and just nodded and smiled as he walked away. Knuckels quickly ran away in the other direction. It doesn't seem like he'd be getting sleep anytime soon.

Sonic sighed. He didn't even know where he was going to sleep tonight. He wasn't in the mood to sleep again outside at the Mystic Ruins forest. He was pretty exhausted. He needed somewhere good to sleep at. His train of thought was interrupted, when he ran into the Chaotix.

"Hey Sonic!" Vector greeted. "It looks like you came out of this crash in one piece too!"

"Great job yet again Sonic!" Charmy said, agreeing.

Sonic smiled. At least most of the world still saw him for what he was five years ago. He hoped Tails wouldn't go and tell the entire world what he had done. Tails wasn't that kind of person. At least, he hoped he didn't turn into such a person after five years. It wasn't likely, but you never know what someone is going to do until they do it. "Thanks guys. I think we all better get some rest though. Tomorrow, I'm going to have to go find Eggman myself."

Espio had suddenly thought up the perfect idea that could benefit both the Chaotix and Sonic after hearing Sonic say that. He thought it was another chance to show just how great his mind was. So, he said, "Wait guys, we're looking for Eggman to right? To help Silver. Let's just work with Sonic and we might get our payment faster."

"You mean you guys wanna help me find Eggman?" Sonic asked, abit surprised by the comment.

Vector and Charmy agreed with Espio and nodded along with him. "Sure Sonic, we're both working towards a similar goal," Espio said. "We might as well team up. Come with us to our home in the Mystic Ruins and rest there with us."

Sonic nodded, and the four of them began to head for the Mystic Ruins to get some rest. But before they disappeared into the dark, Charmy shouted out to Silver, "Hey Silver, let's go! Let's go to sleep at the Chaotix house!"

Silver realized his allies were quickly leaving for the Mystic Ruins, and quickly stopped what he was doing and joined the group.

**Silver/Sonic**

The next day, Station Square had seen the visits of dozens of rescuers overnight, trying to save the people stuck in the wreckage and trying to repair some of the damages. The sun was shining, but there was still darkness in the city from all the destruction, no matter how much light was going to be shining on a certain day. But repairs seemed to be getting off a good start.

Sonic, Silver, and the Chaotix had a pretty good rest overall. The house was small and crowded overall, but it was doable. It was funny how Sonic was as famous as he was and he never really brought an actual house. He always preferred sleeping with nature unless he was really exhausted, like he was last night.

"So, where are we going Sonic?" Charmy asked, curious as to what he was getting into.

"We're going to GUN and see if they know if there's anything we could do to get closer to finding Eggman," Sonic replied, answering Charmy's question.

"Uh, what's GUN again?"

Sonic chuckled, about everyone knew about GUN except the people that really are in the dark in the world. Charmy didn't seem like the kind of person that kept track of what was the most popular in the world. His mind seemed too focused on video games. "It's basically this nation's military program. They take care of alot of things, including Eggman. They might have some info they dug up from the fleet or something."

Charmy stared in awe, GUN sounded like a pretty cool place to him. He wondered if they accepted 11 year olds. He'd probably be getting paid much more then he is with the Chaotix. But something told him he couldn't part from the Chaotix, at least not for awhile. Whether he liked it or not, he was 11, and the Chaotix has really been his only home.

Silver wondered if going to GUN was such a good idea. Maybe Vector would tell GUN about his suspicions. And also, what if Sonic mentions Silver is also a government agent? Were they going to research it to see if that was true? Silver was pretty worried. But he wasn't going to do something out of the ordinary again, as the last time he did that at Eggman's base, it didn't always turn out very well.

The five of them suddenly stopped walking, as Sonic spotted the GUN building right in front of them. "Here we are," Sonic said. The building also seemed heavily damaged from all the destruction, but it wasn't as bad as some of the other buildings at all. It was large, black colored on the metal material used to make the building, surrounded by gates like any other military station was. You could spot all the tanks inside the gates too.

The gates suddenly opened, and the gang went and quickly entered the building. It was pretty dark, and only a few lights were working. There were lots of computers in this main room, but most of them looked pretty broken. The big monitor at the end though was in working condition.

"Wow, this place looks really high tech!" Vector said in amazement.

"I wonder if there are any video games in here?" Charmy said, staring at all the technology.

"Focus Charmy, we're here to stop Eggman!" Vector said in complete annoyance. Charmy pouted, he should've known that comment would've gotten on Vector's nerves.

Suddenly, a human came out of the door in the center and walked over to the gang. He was a dark blue suit, had grey hair, and looked to be in pretty good shape. There were a few badges on his suit, he must've been highly ranked in this institution.

"Ah, you must be Sonic!" he said. Sonic nodded as the male shaked his hand. "I'm the Commander here, how may I be of assisstance?"

Sonic smiled and then said, "Well, me and my friends here are on a mission to go and find Dr. Eggman. But here's the thing, the Eggman that was in that fleet was a _hologram_. So now we really have no idea where Dr. Eggman could be, and we wondered if you had any idea of where we should start."

Silver rolled his eyes when Sonic said hologram. He still couldn't believe Eggman had pulled that on him. Silver was so close to his goal, and the man had to ruin it by revealing himself to be a hologram. Silver was going to make sure he was getting that Eggman, no matter what.

The Commandar was thinking. They didn't find anything examining the fleet, as everything seemed to had dissintegrated from the crash. He kept thinking, until he had finally figured out something from something that didn't even have much to do with the crash. "That's it!" he said.

"You've thought of something?" Espio asked.

The Commander nodded. "Well, you see, awhile back, our agent Rouge had reported that two Chaos Emeralds had gone missing, and they still hadn't been retrieved. What if Eggman has those two emeralds? It'd explain how he produced so many weapons so soon."

Sonic nodded in agreement. "Wow, I haven't heard of the Chaos Emeralds in five years, I never even thought of them!" Sonic said. "Maybe Eggman did take those two Chaos Emeralds."

The Commander nodded. "Well, maybe if you guys were to go looking for the Chaos Emeralds, then maybe you won't have to find Eggman. He might find you."

Sonic chuckled. It was funny to think of Eggman doing his job for him. He liked it. And he didn't really have any other leads either. Sonic gave his thumbs up to the Commander and said, "Sounds good to me. You guys all agree?"

The Chaotix and Silver nodded. Silver knew of the Chaos Emeralds, and knew the power that was contained inside them. He knew Eggman would want that kind of power. He was going to make sure Eggman didn't get anywhere near that power, knowing the destruction he had caused without any.

Sonic then remembered to ask the Commander, "Hey, Eggman isn't back in his desert right?"

The Commander shook his head in disgust and replied by saying, "No, the soldiers have searched the base all night and there was absolutely no one there. Then all of a sudden, the base exploded and nothing in it remains. So we have absolutely no potential clues from the base."

Sonic nodded, he expected as such. Dr. Eggman was a clever person, and he wasn't going to let a simple mistake like that ruin his plan. Sonic sometimes wished he paid that much attention to his actions, might've saved him alot of trouble.

The Commander then said, "By the way Sonic, where's Tails and Rouge? Weren't they traveling with you?"

Sonic suddenly remembered, Tails was angry at him. His smile suddenly disappeared. How was he going to live knowing Tails was thinking what he was thinking? He did feel this disconnection from him since they reunited, but it was more apparant then ever now. He hoped Tails' anger was evaporate eventually. But Sonic felt he had disappointed him as a role model. He felt he disappointed everyone.

Vector noticed Sonic's sudden mood change and asked, "Sonic?"

Sonic quickly snapped out of it and then said, "Um, Rouge is a captive of Eggman. We gotta save her. As for Tails, well, he's taking care of some stuff at the moment so he couldn't be here."

The Commander nodded accepting Sonic's answer. "So Rouge didn't die from the explosion in the Mystic Ruins then. That's good. I hope she's okay. Eggman certainly hasn't forgotten how decieving she was." Everyone else nodded, leaving the building with Rouge in their minds. Where exactly is she now?

**Shadow**

Shadow knew all along exactly what the doctor was going to do. He didn't exactly know what the purpose of that distraction was, besides sending out a warning to all of mankind. But it certainly made the message clear. Eggman was back, and he wasn't going to go easy on the world this time. You must get very angry being stuck in a prison for five years.

Shadow wondered, what was it like to have been stuck in prison for five years, knowing that you're meant to stay in there for the rest of your life? The doctor must've went absolutely insane just thinking so many years ahead. With wanting to inflict such destruction on such a random city, it must've done a number on him. But still, Shadow wondered how he could trust Eggman knowing all of that?

Before, Shadow would've just thought that his gut just told him to trust the doctor, and that he would go with his gut. But something he had found yesterday had got him rethinking what he was doing over here. And that was when he had stumbled across a file titled The Shadow Project, which was password protected.

What in the world could The Shadow Project be? It must involve him somehow, his name was Shadow afterall. What was the doctor exactly planning here? How was he exactly going to get revenge on the entire planet and get them to bow down to the Eggman Empire? So many questions, Shadow needed answers fast. It might be time to go find another Chaos Emerald, or start snooping for that password.

Anyway, Shadow stood in a mystery location. But it was quite absent in the light department, and much of room looked very plain. Looking like some dark blue room without much function. But the walls, floor, and ceiling were definitely made out of metal. Behind Shadow was a prison cell however, and inside the prison cell, sat Rouge the Bat.

Shadow turned around and stared at the bat, who surprisingly smiled back at the hedgehog. Just who was this girl? She had the chance to be free of Eggman's grasp, but instead decided to catch a ride with him to this place. And why did she seem so relaxed? It's like she _wanted_ to be here. But Shadow couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

"You confuse me you know," Shadow said.

"That's kind of funny coming from a guy that's confusing basically everyone in the world," Rouge said, still keeping that smile up.

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Maybe if you were willing to tell some things I wanted to know, I would."

Shadow frowned, he didn't like to be blackmailed. And he certainly wasn't going to do it for some batgirl he didn't really know. But, she talked to him like she did know him. And he did save her once. Maybe there was more to this batgirl then he thought. But, Shadow wouldn't want to risk it with Eggman, at least, not right now.

"I don't get blackmailed so you might as well keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you," Shadow replied.

Shadow then turned around, and prepared to leave the room, not exactly wanting to socialize with Rouge anymore. He didn't like to admit it to himself though, and it was that Rouge's offer didn't sound too bad. Maybe he could get answers that would take forever getting out of Eggman.

Rouge smiled, as if she knew that's what Shadow was thinking.

**Amy**

Back at Station Square, Amy had stayed the night at the hospital having nowhere else to go. Cream's mother Vanilla and Cheese had arrived to the hospital last night. They thought Cream was just getting some groceries that Vanilla had forgotten, but apparantly, the fleet decided Cream was to be sleeping in a hospital instead. When Amy talked to them, they both sounded so worried, and they came basically five minutes after the call, pretty fast. All three of them slept over the night with Cream.

Amy slept on a comfty chair, with her hammer at the right side of her feet lying on the floor. She didn't enjoy sleeping on the chair. Now that she was 17, she was a little too tall to be able to lie down on a chair that short. She wished there was an extra sofa in the room. There was one, but she thought Vanilla would've needed it more since she was older. Cheese slept with Cream.

Amy's eye lieds suddenly opened, and soon she began to sit up on the chair, trying to regain full conciousness. That wasn't too bad of a sleep, but it could've been better without a doubt. But considering she had slept in a dusty prison cell before this, she wasn't complaining very much at all. Once Amy was able to see clearly, she realized Vanilla and Cheese were not there.

"Huh, where are they?" Amy asked.

"Oh Amy, you're awake!" said a familiar rabbit outside the room.

Vanilla and Cheese suddenly entered the room with a tray that contained some doughnuts and some empty cups. Cheese seemed to carrying a big cup of milk. It looked like a nice breakfast to her, but not the best obviously. Amy thought this was strange that Vanilla was just serving doughnuts, knowing how good of a cook she is. But then again, she probably just got them from the hospital cafeteria.

"Oh hey you two, did you get these from the cafeteria?"

Vanilla nodded. "It's not the kind of food I want to serve to celebrate you being alive, but they won't let me cook here in the hospital, even though I asked the staff nicely."

Amy got off of her chair and walked up to the doughnuts. She grabbed the one that seemed to have pink frosting on it and took a bite. It was good, but not great. Had a bit of a strawberry taste. She didn't usually eat sweets like this, she was trying to watch her weight. But she didn't want to turn down the food Vanilla and Cheese got. "Well this hospital is missing out because this is nothing compared to your cooking Vanilla," Amy said.

Vanilla laughed, Amy was always nice to her about her food. Vanilla then looked over at Cream, and the happiness in her face almost disappeared. "I hope Cream is okay, the doctor said she would wake up in the morning," Vanilla said.

Amy smiled and tried to calm Vanilla down by, "I'm sure Cream will be fine Vanilla, she's a fighter."

Vanilla suddenly frowned though, a bit of an unexpected reaction to Amy's comment. "But Cream shouldn't have gone out, I told her to just forget about those groceries but she just wouldn't listen," a protective Vanilla said. Vanilla sighed, definitely thinking about her daughter. "I swear, when she was younger, she would be the perfect little angel, but lately, she just seems to get herself into even more trouble."

Amy smiled, as she understood Vanilla's concern. She then said, "You shouldn't worry too much Vanilla, when I was 12 five years ago, I got into ALOT of trouble obviously. It's natural to want to explore the world a little more, but I don't think Cream is being as bad as she could be at all."

Vanilla looked at Cream still keeping that depressing facial expression. "I know, but why can't she just stay home like she would before and just have her fun around the house?" she asked. "It's not that I'm in denial she is growing up, but you gave me a heart attack when you told me what had happened."

Amy nodded in agreement, she felt that was reasonable. Then just at that second, Amy, Vanilla, and Cheese realized that a certain rabbit's eyes were finally starting to lift open. They all came closer to Cream to see her finally wake up.

"Ohhhh," Cream moaned. "Oh...hey mom, Cheese, and Amy...Amy?" Cream's eyes suddenly opened widely in shock to see her best friend was actually alive. Amy smiled and nodded. Cream than gave Amy a hug, very happy that her friend was quite the survivor.

**Shadow**

Shadow still couldn't get Rouge out of his head. He didn't know what exactly she was trying to do here. Was she being truthful? Or was she just trying to get some information out of him and then tell the government as soon as she got the chance to escape? Hell, maybe she has some secret communication device inside her. How else did Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles find the base? Blah, now he was thinking absolute riduclousness. If there was some device inside her, Eggman would've detected it.

Speaking of Dr. Eggman, Shadow was going to go and visit the doctor himself at the moment actually. He apparantly needed something, calling him to the central control room of wherever they were. Maybe it was time to retrieve another Chaos Emerald. He still wondered what Eggman was planning. What if the Chaos Emeralds were somehow connected to The Shadow Project? He didn't know, but he just had to find out.

Into the control room he went. There didn't seem to be any lights on. Infact, Shadow didn't see one light on in this entire area yet. He wondered why that was the case. Maybe there was just some power problems. He wondered what this place really looked like, because without the lights, this place actually looked pretty plain.

Eggman sat on the chair in front of Shadow looked away from him, staring at the dark wall. He was most likely just thinking, but it still seemed a little creepy. "Shadow, is that you?" Eggman asked.

Shadow nodded and said, "Yes master, why was I called here?"

Eggman turned his chair over to face Shadow and nodded. "It's time to find another Chaos Emerald Shadow my darling," he said. "Are you up to the challenge?"

Shadow nodded and said, "Of course, it will be done." You would think the conversation would've ended there, but Shadow wasn't done. So right before Eggman turned around, Shadow asked, "Master, if I may, why aren't the lights on in this area? Where exactly are we?" Even though Shadow had teleported there, he only knew the location of the area. He actually didn't know what the place was. It kind of killed him, since it was fairly dark and he couldn't see a thing.

Eggman then answered the question by saying, "That's not necessarily important. But once the power is to come back on, who knows, you may figure it out, Shadow."

Figure out? Was Eggman suggesting that he had been here before? It was possible, but the little he had been able to see did not make a thing strike in his mind. Maybe the key here was definitely the light. Like, he could kind of see where he was, but it just didn't seem clear enough without any of the lights.

"Okay doctor, do you know where the next emerald is?" Shadow asked.

Eggman nodded, then said, "It's somewhere inside Hang Castle. Use a Chaos Emerald to chaos control yourself and Omega there. You'll know you're there when you see it."

Shadow nodded, and was about to walk off to go and find Omega. But before Shadow was able to leave, Eggman said, "One more thing. Shadow, be very careful when you're at Hang Castle. Believe it or not, but the castle has the power to weaken even the strongest of people mentally..."

Shadow stopped for a second, thinking about Eggman's words. He then continued and exited the room.

**Sonic/Silver**

So according to Rouge's most recent reports, there was a Chaos Emerald sitting here in the Ice Cap mountains. It was definitely a cold place to be. Sonic hadn't gone here in at least five years since the time he had to retrive a Chaos Emerald to stop Eggman from fully powering Chaos. Apparantly, that Chaos Emerald was back here. But Rouge's reports weren't the most recent ones, and they didn't have a Chaos Emerald with them to be really sure where the emerald was.

But Silver was going to find that emerald at all costs. He didn't care if Vector was onto him, and he didn't care if the Chaotix were going to make this mission harder for him, he wouldn't let anyone get in his way. Not even the cold blizzard like winds in Ice Cap.

All five of them were just beginning to enter the mountains. They could feel the cold breezes surrounding them, and they didn't like it one bit, as they were all shaking from the cold. It would only get worst from here, but they had to be fighters and get through. But there would be some hiccups here and there.

"BAHHHHHHHHHHH, it's freaking cold in here!" Vector complained.

"What else do ya expect from a place called Ice Cap?" Charmy asked with a sarcastic tone.

"Now don't you talk to me like that you idiot! I'm not cold, I'm just, shivering from nerves..."

"Yeah, sure." Charmy then smiled a little, he liked being stronger then Vector in any real given situation.

Sonic smiled at the playfulness between the two. He certainly wished he had that relationship with someone. Especially Tails. But, if he had even ruined his relationship with Tails, he wondered if it was possible for him to have any close friends at all. His facial expression showed his thoughts, and Vector and Charmy noticed his face immediately.

"Hey Sonic, are you ok?" Vector asked.

Sonic was taken aback by Vector's question, not exactly expecting him to be looking at his face like that. He replied though and said, "Oh, yeah, I'm cool Vector. Just another day of stopping Eggman from taking the Chaos Emeralds is all."

But then Vector said, "Are you sure? I don't know Sonic, since the visit to the GUN's facility, you just seem to be a little down in the dumps."

Sonic tried to smile to hide the truth and said, "It's nothin' Vector, I feel great! Eggman won't know what's coming to him once we take these emeralds away from him!"

Charmy overheard Sonic and flew to him saying, "Sonic, you're the coolest person in the world! I'm sure you've done nothing wrong in your life, I wish I was more like you."

Sonic laughed, but in reality, he was laughing because Charmy was just so wrong. At least, that's what he felt. Sonic knew who he really was. Letting Eggman go like that last night, it must've meant something. He couldn't deny it anymore. He was nothing more than a selfish hedgehog that wanted to relive his glory days. Once he saved the world, he would go back into obscurity, and just waste away his life forever. He didn't see what else he was worthy for now.

Vector took Sonic's comment to heart. It was Sonic afterall, nothing that bad could be wrong with him. He suddenly then whispered, "Espio, I need to tell you something."

Espio heard Vector barely, and walked a little closer to him to see what he wanted. "Why are we whispering?" Espio asked, whispering as well.

Vector didn't know exactly how to tell Espio what he wanted to tell, but Espio was very trustworthy, and he was certain Espio can help him find the information he wanted. "It's about Silver," Vector whispered.

"What about him?" Espio asked.

"I've got a bad feeling he isn't exactly who we think he is."

"Why do you say that?"

Vector didn't know how to explain exactly what his proof of thinking this was. But he had to try his best. If Silver was a danger to them, they had to find out before it was too late. "Let's just say, he has different reasons for wanting to get Eggman."

Espio was still a little confused by Vector's comments. However, he was not the type of person to really question. He only did it when he felt there was something really wrong. He could tell Vector didn't know how to explain it though. Besides, Espio never felt that comfortable working with Silver himself. If Vector had suspicions, there had to be something up. "So, what do you want me to do then?"

"I want you to get to know him Espio, get on his good side, and maybe, just maybe, he'll trust you with some stuff he's not going to share with me or Charmy."

Espio nodded. It seemed like a good plan. Silver didn't really have any reason to not trust him yet. Espio didn't get very good vibes from Silver. So if there's something up that's going to possibly hurt them, he was going to find out. Espio looked at Silver, as if to see if he really looked untrustworthy.

Silver didn't hear a thing. He thought it was strange that Vector was being quiet. He hoped Vector didn't say a thing to anyone. How else was he going to explain what he heard without sounding like a madman? I mean, Espio and Charmy couldn't have already felt suspicious about him right? He hoped so. But at the end of the day, as long as Eggman was dead, he didn't care who didn't trust him.

**Amy**

"Amy, I'm so happy you're alive!" Cream said, letting go of her hug on Amy.

Amy smiled and then said, "I'm glad you're alive too!"

Cream then just realized exactly where she was. She then asked, "Wait, why am I in the hospital?"

Vanilla walked up to Cream and then said, "Eggman's fleet crashed into the city and you were right under the fleet. I told you not to go out and get those groceries because I knew something bad would've happened to you and I was completely right."

"But mom, I'm okay," Cream said, a little sad her mom's reaction to her waking up was the paranoid parent one.

"The doctor said you were lucky to even be alive," Vanilla said. "You'll be able to come out of the hospital today by the way. I'll just tell them that you're awake." Vanilla then exited the room. Cheese went and gave Cream a hug as she did.

"Aww Cheese, don't worry, I'm alright!" Cream said. "Amy, did you take me to here to the hospital?"

Amy smiled and then said, "It wasn't just me, it was...Sonic who carried you here. I saw you under the fleet though and you were losing alot of blood."

"Wow, Mr. Sonic sure is a live saver!" Cream said with much happiness.

Amy sighed, she just remembered how rejected she felt when Sonic basically left without really saying goodbye to her. Just what was it about her that made Sonic want to take off like that? Cream noticed Amy's sudden mood change, so did Cheese.

"Amy, is everything okay?" Cream asked.

"Ugh, it's just Sonic as usual," Amy said. "You would think after five years I would just give up on the guy but I just can't. When Sonic brought you in here, he tried to leave as soon as possible as if he didn't even want to hear my voice. Am I really that disgusting of a person?"

Cream's face showed alot of sadness. She really hated when Amy would get depressed over Sonic. But Amy seemed alot more depressed about it this time around. It must've been really bad this time. "Amy, I'm sure Sonic had a good reason to rush out like that."

"Well then I'd sure like to hear it, he didn't seem to be in the best of moods being around me last night," Amy said. She sighed, it just seemed to be the same thing over and over again with her and Sonic.

Cream then remembered something she wanted to say to Amy if she would ever come back. "Oh Amy, by the way." Cream then reached into her pocket and then took out this red shining gem that seemed to absolute astonish you if you were to look at it. "I went to your home and got the Chaos Emerald because I thought you had died. So I was going to bring it to the government to keep it safe. But now that you're here, you can have it again."

Amy took the emerald from Cream. It was still as beautiful as she had last remembered it. She then said, "Thanks Cream. Who knows, maybe this emerald is the reason your injuries aren't that bad!"

Cream smiled and then said, "Well, Chaos Emeralds have more power when they're helping people instead of hurting people, so that would be great if that was the case!" Amy smiled and just continued to stare at the emerald, looking for any scratches. Cream always wondered about something though, and maybe since Amy didn't seem as angry this time around, she could ask it. "Amy, can't you tell me why you need that emerald in the first place?"

Amy turned to Cream. She didn't want to answer that question as in a way, even she didn't know why she was so attracted to the emerald. She then answered, "Even after all this time Cream, I still don't know. I just feel like, it's calling me towards it. It's like it wants me to hold onto it. I don't know how else to explain it."

Before Cream had a chance to respond though, someone opened the door and entered the room. Amy, Cream, and Cheese expected Vanilla to be coming back, but when they turned to the door, it was someone completely different.

"Hey guys," said a yellow fox with two tails.

**Shadow**

"I wonder if Omega is here," Shadow said.

Shadow had to go and find Omega and then chaos control themselves to Hang Castle. The sooner he could go and get those Chaos Emeralds, the faster he can get those answers. But, the questions seemed to be coming faster towards him than answers were, and it frustrated Shadow.

Should he had asked Eggman about The Shadow Project? If he had asked about it, perhaps Eggman may have put the file somewhere else where he could've never found it again. Shadow had a feeling that it was password protected for a reason. Did Eggman have more plans with Shadow outside of finding the Chaos Emeralds? There's something Eggman was keeping from him.

And where in the world was Omega exactly? This place was definitely alot bigger than he had originally expected it to be. Eggman didn't give him any specifics, but he said Omega was nearby. Obviously, that was a lie. Omega must've gone off to somewhere else. Where that exactly was is the question.

Shadow suddenly heard some mechanical noises that sounded very much like Omega moving his arms. Shadow went to the door on the right, but it was locked. Shadow tried turning the knob a few times, which suddenly fell off landing on the ground. Strange is what Shadow thought, this place may be a pretty old area. Shadow ran through the door.

Shadow kept going as the noise grew louder. Omega was definitely in here. He began to slow down a bit, as he didn't want to bump into Omega in the dark. The noise still continued to grow in volume.

"Omega?" Shadow asked.

Suddenly, the noises stopped. Did Omega not want to be seen? Shadow kept on going, until he reached yet another door. Shadow punched the door open, as the lock on that door was actually working. Shadow hoped Omega didn't see that as a threat.

Shadow entered the room, which was surprisingly filled with light. He saw Omega infront of him who seemed to be working on some controls. Shadow looked to the left of the large bright room, which was when his mouth suddenly opened wide, unable to express the thoughts flying around in his head from the sight.

"That's...me...," Shadow said.

Left to right, up and down, below him, there were tons of Shadows. They all looked exactly like Shadow, standing in this robot like position. There must've been liek hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. Shadow wondered, is this what The Shadow Project is?

**Conclusion**

How will Sonic deal with his issues with Tails now? What exactly will Espio discover about Silver? What is Tails doing in Cream's hospital room? And what exactly is up with the thousands of Shadow clones in the new home of Dr. Eggman? All this on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs!


	9. Emerald Hunt

**Previously on Desperate Hedgehogs...**

Sonic and Tails' relationship have only gotten worst, as Sonic's question have angered Tails to the point where they are no longer working on the mission to find and stop Eggman together. The real question is whether Sonic is going to make that same mistake again when he confronts Eggman yet again. He'll find out soon enough, as the doctor is most likely looking for the Chaos Emeralds, which he is confident he'll find all seven of.

Amy is finally free from Eggman's grasps, although the same cannot be said for Rouge. However, she finds herself now stuck in the hospital, accompanying her best friend, Cream, who was severely injured from the fleet's crash. Vanilla, Cream's mom, seemed awfully worried about Cream. What will Cream think of Vanilla once she knows what she really feels? And why did Tails suddenly appear at the end of the episode?

Shadow knew of Eggman's plan all along, as is now at an undisclosed location to him with Eggman, Omega, and surprisingly Rouge, who decided to tag along when Shadow used Chaos Control. Why did Rouge decide to grab onto Shadow when she was finally free from Eggman's grasps? Will Shadow find another Chaos Emerald for Eggman? And what will Shadow do now that he knows what The Shadow Project is, knowing Omega knew all about it?

Silver is still angry about the fact that Eggman tricked everyone by having a hologram sent to distract them. Silver swears vengeance for a reason that's still unknown to everyone but himself. Even the doctor is confused by the person. What will Vector do about Silver if Espio is to find some interesting information? And just who is Silver and why does he want to stop Eggman?

**Shadow**

What in the world was this? Shadow never so many of...him. East and West, North and South, there were hundreds and hundreds of figures that looked just like him. As if they were clones. Or were they robots? It didn't seem to matter, because either way, they were him. And he was them. Just what exactly was Eggman trying to pull over here? Did he make all of these things, or was there more to Shadow's backstory than Eggman had told him?

Omega stood right in front of Shadow, with a the same expression Omega had always given him. It seemed like Omega was incapable of showing emotion, but it was obvious Omega wasn't expecting Shadow to come in here. Shadow wondered, did Omega know about this the whole time?

"Omega...this is the Shadow Project, isn't it?" Shadow asked, trying to break the ice.

Omega stood silent for a second. It seemed like for a bit that his orders were not to tell Shadow anything about it. But suddenly, Omega just nodded, answering Shadow's question.

"So, you knew about this," Shadow concluded. Maybe Omega was willing to tell him some things now that Shadow had caught him red handed. He could always try. "Omega, what in the world is this? Why do all of these robots, or clones, look like me?"

Omega then asked, "How did you discover the contents of this project?"

Shadow was shocked. That was probably the first words that Omega had ever said to him. And if Omega said something before, it certainly was just something nowhere near as significant as this. "On the fleet, I was just looking at some files in the main memory on a computer, and I found a password protected file called The Shadow Project." Shadow hesitated to ask the question he was about to ask, this really was his most risky move he was about to make. "You wouldn't happen to know what the password is, would you?"

Omega stood still, silent for an even longer period this time around. Was Omega just going to ignore his question? He wouldn't blame him if he did, but this answer would determine if Omega truly was on his side or not. But Omega did say something, and that was, "This is a warning Shadow, do not look where you re not meant to look."

Shadow acknowledged Omega's comments. Omega did know the password, that was a sure thing. But for now at least, Omega wasn't going to give him it. Shadow nodded, realizing how useless it was going to be to try to reason with a robot. "The doctor wants us to travel to Hang Castle to look for the next Chaos Emerald. Let's go to the emerald vault, collect a Chaos Emerald, and Chaos Control ourselves over there."

Omega nodded to respond, and slowly walked out of the room towards the vault room. Shaodw followed shortly after he left the room. But before he exited the room, he took one last look at the tons and tons of figures that looked just like him. He wondered, could they talk? Or were they incapable of thought? Were they really just copies of him? Or, was he actually one of them? That doesn't explain why he's only seen them now though. It was as if he was special in some way.

Shadow took a look at a faraway Omega, heading down the hallway. That robot knew something, Shadow knew it. But why did the robot bother confirming his thoughts about the room? Did Omega have the ability to think for himself as well? Shadow wondered if there was more to Eggman's robot then he thought. He exited the room, taking his questions with him.

**Amy**

"Tails?" Amy and Cream asked simultaneously, with Cheese giving quite a stare at the yellow fox.

"Hey guys," Tails said. With his yellow/orange colored fur, Tails walked over to Cream who was still lying in the bed at the hospital. How did he even know that Cream was here? Amy didn't know, but she guess that didn't really matter. But Cream and Tails weren't the biggest friends, but they did have a mutual respect for each other. Doesn't Tails have other things to do?

"How you feeling today Cream?" Tails asked.

Cream smiled, thinking that Tails was just here for her, which was surprising but nice. The two never did talk much, but maybe they could start to? "Oh, I'm doing pretty good Tails, thanks! The doctor said I was severely injured, but it was nothing he could fix, and I should be out of the hospital pretty soon actually!"

Tails smiled, a little surprised yet not surprised about Cream's enthusiasm. Always a nice thing to be with when you weren't in the best of moods.

Amy still wondered why Tails would come here though, as there probably was something more to it. Afterall, how did he even find out that Cream was here? He would've had to be looking for her to find her. Or maybe perhaps, Tails was looking for her? She thought it was useless thinking about it, so she asked, "Hey Tails, how come you're here?"

Tails just said, "I just heard Cream was hurt, and I came to see if she was alright, that's all." Tails let out a quiet sigh, not meaning for it to be heard by anyone, but Amy heard it loud and clear.

Amy suddenly remembered seeing Sonic and Tails right after the crash and wondering what they were talking about. Why Tails seemed so, angry, at Sonic. Maybe he sighed for that exact reason. Amy, being the helpful person she thought she was, then asked, "Hey Tails, do you know where Sonic is?"

Tails was a bit taken aback by the question, but he answered by saying, "Who knows, he's so unpredictable you don't ever know where he is."

Amy knew there was something up, and she could tell by Cream and Cheese's facial expressions that they got a similar vibe from the two tailed fox as well. Maybe Tails would tell Amy why Sonic was so quick to leave. "What do you mean by that Tails?" she asked.

Tails just turned to Amy, looking depressed due to having to answer such a question. He tried to shrug it off and give Amy an obvious message by saying, "It's nothing."

But Amy wasn't who she was 5 years ago, she was alot smarter, and more able to read into people's thoughts. She knew something was wrong with this picture, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it one way or another. "It didn't look like nothing when I saw you and Sonic arguing last night right after the crash."

Tails just stood silent, he knew Amy had caught him dead on with that comment, because she was no doubt right.

"Come on Tails, you know I'm not the girl I was five years ago, you can trust me. You saw how much I've grown too because I've helped you these past five years in the lab, remember?" Amy referred to her part-time job of helping out Tails in the lab. Amy had actually quite a bit from the experience, and had gotten closer to Tails then she ever had before. But the relationship usually was just a boss and worker relationship at the base of it.

Tails sighed, there was no escaping it now. He looked at Amy, as Cream and Cheese faced the fox along with Amy to see what he would say. "Let's just say Sonic isn't the same guy he was five years ago, and it sucks."

Amy definitely knew how Tails felt, feeling like Sonic didn't even want her around anymore. Before, Sonic may not have been the nicest to her, but at least he tolerated her as a friend. But now, he was a bigger jerk than before. Just what had happened to Sonic? "I know what you mean Tails. I feel like Sonic doesn't want a thing to do with me. I don't know why I still keep chasing him after so long. I wish I could just give up in all honesty and find someone that'll appreciate me."

Tails looked at Amy who looked like he had understood exactly what Amy had said. "Sonic has changed. I wish what I saw him do wasn't true, but, I saw him do something so selfish and just, not him, in front of my own eyes."

This was something Amy didn't expect to hear. She wanted to know what Tails was talking about right away. "What did he do Tails?"

This was where Tails turned his back to Amy, Cream, and Cheese. It was definitely the part Tails didn't want to talk about. He just said, "Look, all you have to know was you can never look at Sonic they way you did before if you were to find out what exactly he did. Why I came down here was...," Tails turned around to the girls yet again, "...I'm not going to continue my mission with Sonic to find Dr. Eggman. But under president's orders, I have to keep going with the mission. I was wondering if you three wanted to help me out with the mission."

Amy thought of what kind of oppurtunity it would be to make a name of her own by actually helping out the government in the mission to capture Dr. Eggman. And she also had that little hope that Sonic would acknowledge the fact that she saved the city and maybe change his mind about her and realize she wasn't the annoying kid she was before. She didn't want to admit it, but she thought having Tails' help would make this dream come true.

"Sure Tails, anything to stop that madman from keeping people like me as a prisoner!" Amy said in happiness.

"Cheese and I are willing to help to, we just have to wait for my mom to check me out of the hospital!" Cream said, with Cheese saying Chao in agreement with her.

"Excuse me?" asked Vanilla, who had surprisingly walked into the room when Tails had asked that question for Amy, Cream, and Cheese to answer. "Honey, I don't think you should go help on this mission."

**Sonic/Silver**

The bitter cold didn't exactly help the situation at all. Sonic, Silver, and the Chaotix were at Ice Cap, trying to look for a Chaos Emerald to try and find Eggman. Eggman would no doubt be looking for the emeralds, so Eggman would inevitably have to come out of hiding to get the emeralds if the good guys had some of them. That would be the chance to strike.

The Chaotix were in the back of the group, just chatting along with each other. Silver wondered what they could be talking about. Maybe Vector was finally telling them about what he had heard him say? At least it didn't seem like Vector was telling the blue hedgehog, Sonic. How could these people work with someone they had barely known anyway? Didn't the Chaotix hold suspicions about him at first, and didn't Sonic hold any suspicions at the moment?

Truth be told, Sonic already had so much on his mind, a mysterious white hedgehog really was the least of his worries. From Eggman coming back, Shadow returning, Rouge still missing, and of course, his fight with Tails, there was just so much to think about. Silver was the least of his worries. But, the hedgehog definitely seem strange, as if Sonic was concious enough from Eggman's attack, Silver actually tried to kill Eggman. And he seemed very angry after Eggman turned out to be a hologram. But Sonic didn't need another problem, not now.

"So, where exactly is the Chaos Emerald here?" Silver asked.

"It should be somewhere inside the center mountain, underground. So we kind of got a long way to go, hope it doesn't get too cold," Sonic said, being able to crack a smile.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me," Silver replied. And Silver was right, he had gone through so many worst conditions, this bitter cold was nothing compared to the things he had done before.

"Well I-I'm f-freezing!" Charmy shouted complaining.

"Too bad, you're gonna have to get used to it!" Vector said in annoyance.

Sonic chuckled at yet another Chaotix moment, these guys always make you laugh, even when they didn't intend to do it. Silver smiled, but he couldn't help but think of what the Chaotix were really thinking of him at the moment. It didn't matter though, he needed their help to find Eggman, and as long as Eggman was put in the place he belonged in, he didn't care what they thought of him. He was certainly not the bad guy, that's what he knew for sure.

Later on, the five continued to walk across the snow. Sonic would've just ran if he was there by himself. Although, he had to admit, this bitter weather would make it hard for Sonic to just blaze through it. Walking was unfortunately the much safer option.

Silver thought they got lost many times, but truth be told, Sonic always said that they were heading in the right direction. Who exactly is Sonic anyway, and why does he seem like the big name everyone knew? The people at GUN talked to him like he was a celebrity, and Charmy certainly thought Sonic was mad cool. Whatever he was, he was on his side, for now at least. Silver hoped he wouldn't turn anyone else against him.

"We're here," Sonic said, as they finally entered a cave on the center mountain of ice cap. The mountain was said to be so high that it could touch the clouds, but high wasn't where these five wanted to go. They wanted to go down, to where the Chaos Emerald was being held. As they entered the cave, they had realized, there were two paths leading down, but in completely different directions.

"Which way do we go?" Silver asked, unsure of which path to take.

"I'm...not sure," Sonic said, unfortunately forgetting to actually ask for directions to where the emerald was. "I guess I forgot to ask for specific details."

Espio then walked up to the front with an idea on how to progress. He said, "How about we split up from here you guys? Silver and I will take the stairs on the left, which you three take the stairs on the right."

"Sounds good to me," Sonic said, not having a problem with Espio's suggestion. "We should notify the other group if one of us finds the Chaos Emerald, so we can meet up back here and get on to find the next emerald."

Everyone nodded in agreement, including Silver, who was glad he could have some space from Vector for the time being. All five of them headed off in the groups they were assigned, hoping to find that Chaos Emerald down there somewhere.

**Amy**

"What do you mean mom?" Cream asked, as she didn't quite catch what Vanilla had said. At least, that's what she thought, but she truly knew what Vanilla had said.

"I'm saying I don't want you to go on such a dangerous mission after just being in the hospital," Vanilla repeated.

Amy and Tails just tried staying in the background, as they definitely were not interested in getting into a mother and daughter argument. Amy knew Vanilla had some problems with Cream lately, but she never actually saw them have an argument before. But, she obviously has now.

"Mom, you don't have to worry, I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself!" Cream said trying to convince her mother.

"Cream, you are only eleven years old, you are not a big girl!" Vanilla argued back, getting a little fed up with Cream for once. "Now, I've always tried my best to acknowledge that you have wishes and let you do what you want to let you be happy, but this is the last straw Cream. You almost got killed last night right after I said it was a bad idea to go and shop at night. I'm only saying no for your own good Cream, you're going to rest at home."

Cream couldn't believe her ears. Never had her mother really sounded this strong in an argument. She didn't like it either. She always thought her mom saw her as this very responsible and mature girl that could make decisions on her own. But that's obviously changed, all because of this accident. "But I know I'll be fine mom! Amy, Tails, and Cheese will make sure I'm okay, and I always help my friends when they ask for it! This is a good cause to finally stop Eggman, I want to do this, especially since he's the reason I'm in the hospital in the first place."

Vanilla sighed, Cream just had to bring the saving the world and helping out friends cards. It wa shard to argue against that, but Vanilla didn't care. "I really don't care Cream, this is for your own good, I _forbid_ you to go on this mission!"

Cream suddenly stood up from her bed, even more shocked to hear Vanilla say that word, forbid. "Mom, I'm sorry, but you can't forbid me from helping my friends. I'm going to do this, and you can't stop me!"

Vanilla couldn't believe how strong her daughter really was. She really did think that she could come out of this unscathed. Vanilla didn't know what to do, it seemed like it was impossible to make an 11 year old come to her senses. So in a sense, she basically gave up. "Fine Cream, go. Go and give me a heart attack when you are hurt again by that madman! Just know that I only tried to fight for this, because I felt I was fighting for your life. Tails, Amy, please take good care of her, she obviously doesn't do a very good job at it herself." And just like that Vanilla left the room, a few tears falling from her face.

Cream turned around from the door where her mom was standing a few seconds ago, and just sat on the bed and sighed. Cheese walked over to Cream and gave her a hug. Amy and Tails walked up to Cream, still shocked at what had happened.

"I had no idea Vanilla would be so upset," Tails said. "I'm sorry I asked Cream, you really don't have to come if you want to make your mom happy."

Amy then contributed, "Cream, just remember Vanilla loves you, and that's why she doesn't want you to go and put your life in danger. If you want some time to think about it, then we'll give you the time." Amy didn't think Cream absolutely had to come with them to find the emeralds, she kind of thought it would've just been better if Cream went and said sorry to her mom. Because Vanilla was right, Cream was only 11, and she just got hurt severely from the crash. But Amy wasn't going to tell Cream what to do, it wasn't her place she felt.

But Cream shook her head to the suggestions, and then said, "No guys, I want to do what I feel is right. I'm going to help my friends because they're always there for me. So, let's go!"

Tails nodded, and then said, "I have a Chaos Emerald in the Tornado 3, let's fly in that and get to where the Chaos Emerald is. My emerald will be able to tell us where it is since emeralds react to each other's prescence."

Tails, Cream, and Cheese then exited the room to go to the plane. Amy left too, but she stared at the red emerald in her hands before leaving. "I'm going to show Sonic, I've changed." She finally ran out of the room.

**Sonic**

Well, the path these stairs lead to never merged with Silver and Espio, so it really was just Sonic, Vector and Charmy. Sonic wished it wasn't so dark under the mountains, but at least he had a flashlight on him so they could see. But it really wasn't much of an improvement. It was still dark as can be in the mountain.

"This is kinda scary," Charmy said worrying about getting lost.

"Maybe for idiots like you that get lost easily, but not for me!" Vector said, sounding very proud of what he thought was a good comment to make.

"Hey, just because you're big and older doesn't mean you can say things like that to me!" Charmy said sounding very annoyed that Vector tried to undermine him yet again just for being smaller and younger.

Sonic just ignored what the two was saying. He instead just tried to focus on finding that Chaos Emerald and nothing more. He didn't want to focus on anything else. Especially Tails. Just focus on the emerald, forget about everything else that has happened. Just stop Eggman, and go back to the way it was and just disappear from the world for good. He didn't deserve fame and glory anymore, now he would throw it away even more then he ever did before.

Vector thought of how unusually silent Sonic was. He always was a talker if he could remember. What made him so focused on the mission for once without having any fun? He still thought something was wrong with Sonic, despite what Sonic had assured him of before. Maybe Vector should take a different approach to getting information out of him.

"So Sonic, how exactly did Eggman escape from you on the fleet?" Vector randomly asked.

Sonic's face suddenly froze, definitely looking uncomfortable no matter how much Sonic had tried to hide it. Vector noticed this, he wanted to ask a question that would get Sonic to make such a face. He just didn't think he would get it right on his first try, he had a ton of questions he was going to ask.

Sonic had to respond somehow, but no way could he tell the truth, that was a definite not. He would just come up with some story in his head quickly and then tell Vector that story. But Vector was a detective, so he had to sound convincing. "Ah, the egghead had a secret attack up his sleeve and he got me by surprise and got away before the fleet crashed into the city," Sonic replied.

But Vector saw Sonic's face, and knew that something was up. It was time to put his detective skills to the ultimate test. Will he be able to get the truth out of the blue hedgehog? He'll find out soon enough, he was sure o fit. "What exactly was the attack?"

Sonic thought he was basically damned, he didn't know much about weaponry. What kind of attack could slip under him and also surprise him? He guessed he'd just say something random. "It was just some laser I hadn't seen him use before. It's been five years Vector, so I guess I kind of lost some of my flare."

Vector wasn't done yet however, that definitely wasn't on that was it. He thought of what else he could ask Sonic. After much thought in just a few seconds, he had found the answer. "Tails was with you when you went after Eggman right? You said he was busy at GUN, isn't he going to join us eventually? What could he be doing?"

Vector was good, very good. How was he going to say something else besides the fact that Tails saw what he had done and would never speak to him again? Sonic looked down as he was walking, looking like he had given up trying to hide what he was feeling. He sighed softly, trying not to let the other two hear.

Vector definitely saw that he had reached the jackpot. It was time for the grand finale. "Sonic, you can tell us anything, we'll understand! You're Sonic afterall, you deserve some help yourself after all you had done five years ago."

**Shadow**

Hang Castle, the stories that surrounded the area sounded like nothing but myths. But the truth is, if you were to just get a glance of the area in real life at night, you'd basically scare your pants off. The place looked as haunted as ever, all that was really missing was the haunted music when you go through the door.

This didn't intimidate Shadow or Omega once though. They were under orders to find the Chaos Emerald in this area. Eggman seemed very sure that the Chaos Emerald was inside this castle. There were lots of mini black castles surrounding the big one, but Shadow and Omega were able to reach the door of the main one in no time. But likewise, they did encounter some very unfriendly ghosts that had pumpkins as a head.

Yes, this was a strange place. If you looked down, you basically see nothing but clouds. This was strange as the castle was definitely not in the sky. Shadow wasn't bothered though, all he wanted to do was find the Chaos Emerald and get back to the base as soon as possible to ask the doctor more questions, and maybe discover more about The Shadow Project.

Omega was silent the whole way through, not wanting to talk about what had happened in the base. He obviously knew Shadow was not supposed to find out about the project. Omega couldn't help but just say yes to Shadow's question about if that was the project though, and he didn't exactly know why he disobeyed orders that time.

"This must be the castle," Shadow said. "This place sure is mysterious. What do you know about Hang Castle Omega?"

Omega went to work and researched the internet inside his brain for information on the area. But strangely, Omega said, "No information is available on current location."

"Well, that just makes it even more mysterious," Shadow concluded. They both opened the huge gates and entered through the castle.

The inside of the castle was unusually bright, with orange wall covering and a giant lamp on the top. It looked like a mansion of some sorts actually, but it still definitely was a mysterious looking place.

"How can a place like this be here?" Shadow asked.

Shadow and Omega ran up the stairs and through the door, which lead into a hallway. They ran across the hallway, then up some stairs, and entered through another door, until they came to a stop at a large circular room with a door right infront of them. The two of them ran to the door to open it, only to find that there was nothing behind the door. They opened it only to see the other side of the room.

"This is strange," Shadow said. "It's a dead end."

"We should look around for another way," Omega said. "I will head back to see if there was any specific items we may have missed, you explore this room." And just like that, Omega left as Shadow nodded.

Shadow walked around the room hoping to find something to help them continue their mission towards the Chaos Emerald. As he walked, he finally noticed there was a hole in the floor at the other side of the door. He looked inside it and saw the blue spherical object. Shadow wondered what this way, and reached out his right hand to touch it.

"W-what is this?" he asked.

Suddenly, a bright white light started to shine in the orb, which was engulfing the entire room. Shadow couldn't see a thing, as the room transformed right before his eyes.

**Amy**

Outside the castle where Shadow and Omega were, was actually Amy, Cream, Tails, and Cheese, who were just entering the dark area. They were pretty far from the actual castle, but their emeralds were pointing towards the castle, so they had best get there and start their search for the Chaos Emerald.

"Why would an emerald be in here?" Amy asked. "Isn't it a bit dark to be a perfectly good living condition?"

Dark it was indeed, as the sky was dark black, and all the castles looked to have been made out of black or silver bricks. The road they all stood on was brown, and torches were around to give some light. But it still was quite the creepy area, you did not want to get lost in this place, or you would remain lost for the rest of your life.

Cream and Cheese both looked equally scared. This was definitely not the place to go to pick out flowers. They had heard stories about this place, but never believed the area was actually that scary. But they were wrong, very wrong, as they stared at the whole kingdom in horror.

Amy, noticing Cream and Cheese's expressions, then asked, "Are you sure you two don't want to just go back home? I'd understand if you thought this place was a little scared, I'm scared too. Just look at this place!"

Cream shook off her facial expression, while Cheese kept his, as Cream said, "No, Cheese and I will be fine! We're going to help you two okay, don't worry about my mom!"

Amy nodded, she wasn't going to get involved with the situation. It was Cream's choice, no matter what she was thinking. Amy just hoped that Cream and Vanilla would be okay, as they used to be so close when she had first met Cream. She always remembered that day, where they met by accident, and have become fast best friends ever since.

But Amy decided not to think about the past now, it was time to get down to why they were there. "Tails, do you know anything about this place?"

"Nothing but myths and legends," Tails said. "But they might as well be true, as this place is always under dark skies, no other place in the world is like that. Everywhere but this place always gets a little bit of sunshine. I've spent some time researching this place when I first found out about it 3 years ago, but there was nothing that could truly explain this whole place, researchers have been stuck on Hang Castle for a long time."

"Sounds like the perfect place for a Chaos Emerald to hide," Amy said in annoyance.

The four of them began to walk forward into the empty kingdom that contained nothing but ghosts to haunt it. The road quickly led them into a small castle, which had a dead end at the end.

"What do we do now?" Amy asked.

Tails looked up into the sky and saw that this castle had no ceiling. "We can fly up there and keep on going," Tails concluded.

Cream and Cheese went first and flew into the sky and landed on the other side of the castle. Amy was about to grab onto Tails' feet to get going, until she noticed something strange. She saw a blue spherical object in front of her where the dead end was. She wondered what it was, why it was so bright.

"Tails, do you see that?" Amy asked, pointing to the object.

But Tails just looked at Amy like she was crazy, saying, "I don't see anything Amy."

Was this just an illusion? One of the legends of Hang Castle? Amy didn't know, but she was too curious to leave this alone. She walked over to the blue object, and touched it. Suddenly, a white light shined through the object, as it began engulfing the entire room.

"Ahh!" Amy said, as she went blind due to all the light for a few seconds.

**Silver**

Back at Ice Cap, Silver and Espio were in an area that wasn't dark at all, but it wasn't very bright either. They were in a narrow hallway, walking through it with walls that are made of ice. Who knew it would be even colder down here? As if it couldn't get cold enough. But at least there wasn't any snow flying towards their faces like there was outside. So Silver and Espio was satisfied.

They were mostly silent until now. Espio definitely was the silent type of person, and Silver didn't have a single problem with that at all. The less talking, maybe the less suspicious anyone feels about him. He definitely learned that the hard way.

Espio knew that Vector had suspicions however, and when Silver had finally let his guard down, he was going to strike hard where it hurt. In all honesty, Espio had never had much trust in Silver in the first place. As a ninja, he was trained to see even the smallest hints of unintegrity in all people he is to interact with, and he certainly some of that in Silver at certain times. But he never decided to act on the instincts, as he would be alone in the matter if he told Vector and Charmy, until now that was. And also, Espio didn't have strong feelings of doubt towards Silver anyway.

"So Silver, where do you reside?" Espio asked, beginning his mission.

Silver didn't expect Espio to speak so sudden like that. And to top it off, quite the random question. He had to answer it, no more looking like a crazy guy to everyone for Silver. He said, "It's a place I wish I didn't have to call home."

Espio was a bit surprised by that answer. He expected a random name of a city or something along the lines of that. But Silver said something much deeper instead. "Why do you say that?" Espio asked.

Silver sighed, he wished he could tell the full story behind it, but he couldn't let anyone know everything that they needed to know about him. He had a hard time trusting people, along with a few other reasons that he just couldn't go and tell why he was here trying to kill Dr. Eggman. "Let's just say, I didn't have the best childhood. But that's why I'm here, to make sure no one else has to live a life like mine."

Espio realized there was much more to Silver then he had initially expected. It seems like Silver has more to share then he is letting on. Espio suddenly became much more interested in this mission to discover the truth. "And arresting Eggman will help?" Espio asked.

Oh, if only Silver had to just arrest him. But nope, Silver was going to kill Dr. Eggman. For all the things he believed the doctor has done, he wants to make him pay. He wants to save the world. But he still wouldn't say exactly what Eggman did to anyone. "Of course it'll help, isn't he the number one most wanted terroist here?" Silver asked.

Espio nodded in agreement. "I guess you do have a point here."

Silver nodded, and kept on walking with Espio through the hallway. They kept walking, until however, Silver started to slow down. Espio stopped as soon as he noticed Silver had come to a complete stop. He walked back to Silver, who was strangely on his knees on the cold ice floor.

"Silver, are you okay?" Espio asked.

"I-I'm..." Silver could barely say a word, as he began to face down, looking to be in pain. "Argh..." Suddenly, the floor began to rumble as if there were an earthquake, and the ice walls began to break apart. Espio loses his balance, in absolute confusion on what was going on.

**Sonic**

"Well Sonic, say something man," Vector said.

But Sonic didn't even want to say anything. Why did he have to be forced into this situation? Vector had hit him right on the money. You've got to give the guy credit, he was a decent detective. If only people these days needed their services more, the Chaotix would be booming with service. But since Eggman had been in prison, they were having alot of trouble.

But Vector was a cool guy, and Charmy would probably not think any less of him being as young as he was and not exactly understanding the whole story. But still, Sonic didn't want to share. He was too ashamed of what he had done, and letting the whole world find out would only make it worst. All you had to do was tell someone, and it would surely spread like wildfire. Would Vector and Charmy be any different? He had to say something. He stopped walking and just sighed, turning around to Vector and Charmy.

"No Vector, I don't deserve help," Sonic said.

"Hm?" Vector asked confused. "How come Sonic? Everyone could only wish they were just like you, being able to save the world everytime it is in danger. How could you not deserve some help from some friends?"

Sonic wished he couldn't prove Vector wrong, but he definitely could if he told Vector the exact truth. Sonic knew that what he did would shock the both of them. Perhaps they would not see him for what he was anymore. Eventually, it would be useless to try to hold onto that image of being that great hero that stopped Eggman dozens of times, neutralized a giant blue monster, and stop a research center from crashing into the Earth's atmosphere. He wasn't that guy anymore, he might as well admit it.

"Guys, I really don't know if I can explain it, but, it's useless trying to pretend it never happened, because it did. When we were on that fleet, me and Tails had Dr. Eggman trapped. And I couldn't arrested him right there and finish the mission. Well, he was a hologram so not exactly. But I didn't know he was one at the time. So, when I was about to capture Eggman, something...held me back."

"Held you back?" Charmy asked. "What in the world can slow you down?"

"Apparently, me. I just...couldn't take him back to prison. Go back to that life where there was no longer a point to my life. I became a regular citizen, and I hated those boring days of just lying in Mystic Ruins every day for five years. I guess I felt, capturing Eggman would...bring me back to that."

Vector and Charmy stood silent, with blank faces, unable to react to what Sonic had just said at the moment. They didn't expect that of all things to come out of Sonic. Who knew he would be the one to let Eggman get away on purpose? Even though he was a hologram, so he wouldn't got away anyway.

"So, that's what Tails interpretted it as?" Vector asked.

"Well, he thought I was being selfish, and he's kind of right," Sonic said, finishing off with a sigh. "You happy guys, now you can stop calling me a hero, because I'm not! Let's just go and get this mission over with."

Sonic quickly continued walking, forcing Vector and Charmy to quickly leave their thoughts to follow him, now unsure of what to say to Sonic. But they would think of something, they didn't hate Sonic for what he admitted doing, absolutely not. But, what Sonic did was definitely crazy, there was no doubt to that.

Suddenly though, the ground began to rumble in the dark area, as icicles started falling from the black sky, which made it impossible to see where the sharp icicles were coming from.

"Oh no!" Charmy shouted. "We're going to die if we get hit by those things!"

**Silver**

"Argh!" Silver kept shouting as the hallway around him continued to collapse.

Silver knew what was happening, and he didn't like it one bit. He was obviously in pain, and he obviously knew why the room was rumbling, as he was being affected as well. He wished he could stop this so bad, but he knew that there was only one way to do it, and it would be a miracle if Espio knew what to do.

But Espio was just speechless, as he watch Silver's powers go out of control as the ice walls and floors around him collapse. He could've sworn that an earthquake was about to start. Or better yet, already starting. He knew this had something to do with Silver, seeing him in the pain he was. Now he knew for sure that it was necessary to find out who Silver truly was. But first, he had to do all he could to stop all this chaos.

"Silver, your powers!" Espio said.

"Y-yes Espio, y-you need t-to leave!" Silver shouted. "NOW!"

But Espio wasn't the kind of person to leave someone whom he did not dislike in danger. Silver could get hurt quite a bit from all the damage being caused here, perhaps even death. He wasn't going to let that happen. He wouldn't start going against what he had believed was right, despite what Vector suspected about Silver.

"No, I'm not leaving you here alone, you're coming with me!" Espio cried back refusing Silver's request.

"You don't understand!" Silver cried, still sounding in quite alot of pain. "I can't explain it to you, all I know is that you have got to leave this instant! I'll be fine, but you won't be if you stay here!"

"Try me."

Espio then grabbed Silver's hand and was intending to make a run for it back up the stairs and then outside the mountain. But as he continued to run dragging Silver, the earthquake slowly came to stop, stunning Espio and Silver as they stopped moving for an exit. The room reached a more stable situation, and everything was finally back to normal.

"E-Espio, how did you know?" Silver asked, amazed at how Espio was able to save their lives.

"I-I don't know, I just touched you and all of a sudden, everything was back to normal," Espio replied, in shock wondering how they had gotten so lucky.

Silver knew what this meant though. Knowing everything about what had just happened, there were only a certain group of people that knew how to calm him down like that. It was something he couldn't do, but this special group of people that he knew could, he suddenly realized, that Espio was apart of.

"Espio, are you a part of the...Warrior Order?" Silver asked.

Espio stared at him in absolute shock. No one, not even the Chaotix knew of his alliance with that order. How was Silver able to guess that from the little conversations they had? "H-how did you know?" Espio asked. "The number one rule of the Warrior Order is to not disclose your identity to any non-members, which I've followed strictly."

Silver nodded, as if he knew that Espio would say such a thing. "But your kind is the only one with the powers to stop what you had just stopped," Silver said. "Espio, I'm a member of the Warrior Order in the year 2206."

**Shadow**

"W-where am I?"

That's the question Shadow asked as soon as the light had disappeared and everything went dark. Shadow couldn't see a thing, as there was nothing but darkness wherever he was. Was this area completely empty then? As he could literally see nothing. There should've been something he could see, but there was nothing. What had happened by touching that blue object? Did it teleport him somewhere, or did it change the castle?

Shadow suddenly felt the Chaos Emerald he had taken to Chaos Control himself and Omega react alot more this time around. The Chaos Emerald must've been near. But even with the light from the emerald, there was nothing to be seen. But it looked like a Chaos Emerald was closeby, wherever this place was. Shadow figured he would find the emerald, and then figure a way out of there.

So he began running towards wherever the emerald was leading him. The reaction from the emerald would just slowly build up. The emerald must've still been pretty far away, but this was the most Shadow's emerald had reacted. He kept going blindly in the dark. And he continued to do so as he heard some strange voices.

"Who am I?" "Where am I?" "Am I who everybody says I am?" "Can Dr. Eggman be trusted?"

These voices were...his. What kind of sick mansion was this? It was as if every question he had thought in his mind was suddenly being shouted at him repeatately.

"Will the Chaos Emeralds help me discover who I am?" "Does Omega know anything about me?" "Who were those two girls, and why did they seem familiar?" "What is The Shadow Project?"

"Am I a part of that army of Shadows?"

Shadow no longer could tell what he was hearing was either what he has actually said or just the voices that seem to be shouting at his head. He suddenly came down to his knees, covering his ears with his white glove covered hands to try and block out the sound. He felt like he couldn't even think, let alone try to speak. Why did he have so many questions? And why was he being reminded over and over of how many he had?

Shadow suddenly looked up in the dark area, and saw someone he had not expected to see. It was a girl, probably a young teenager. She wore a blue sweater, with a long blue dress to cover most of her legs. She had beautiful blonde hair, and just the most innocent eyes, and the sweetest smile.

"W-who are you?" Shadow asked.

"Shadow, I beg of you," the girl began to say.

"Maria!" Shadow thought up in his mind. But, he had not thought that up by himself, it actually came to his head by surprised. Maria, is this what the girl's name was?

"Do it for me, for a better future," the girl continued. "For all the people who live on that planet, give them a chance to be happy!"

What the heck was this? Why was this girl saying the things she was saying? Shadow just stared at the girl in utter confusion. Just what was this place, and why was it tearing his head apart like this?

"Let them live their dreams, Shadow."

"Wait, how do you know my name?" Shadow suddenly asked, surprised to hear his name come out of her mouth.

"I know you can do it," the girl said, as if she were acting like Shadow was not infront of her asking that question. "That's the reason you were brought into this world. Sayarana, Shadow the hedgehog."

The girl suddenly began to walk away, leaving Shadow reaching his arm out for the girl, not wanting her to leave. "Wait, please!" Shadow cried. Shadow tried to run after the girl, but right when he reached her, she had already disappeared. Shadow looked ahead in absolute awe. Who was she, and why was he so curious to hear more of her words? Was what she said true? Or was the mansion just trying to mess with his head? Shadow fell to the floor, exhausted by these mind tricks.

**Amy**

"What just happened?"

Those were Amy's exact words when she realized she was staring at vast darkness where it was impossible to see a thing. Was she dying? She doesn't remember getting hurt or anything, just touching some blue object and then seeing light change the entire area. But what really was the true story behind what just happened? And where were Tails, Cream, and Cheese? How did Tails not see that blue object anyway? Was she going insane?

Amy took out her Chaos Emerald then, a noticed that it was reacting more then it ever was before. Did this mean that the Chaos Emerald was somewhere here, wherever it was? There was only one way to find out, and that was to follow its signal. Amy quickly got started in hopes that finding that Chaos Emerald also led to a way out.

She wondered what Tails had exactly been talking about when he was talking smack about Sonic. It must've taken to get Tails off of Sonic's side of all people. Tails was always Sonic's best friend, and if even Tails could not stick up for Sonic, who could? She wondered if this was a sign that she should really give up on Sonic for good, and move on to someone that actually wants her.

But there was just something about Sonic that drew her to him. He just seemed so fearless, a guy that would protect her girl at all costs. Amy liked being the princess in the fairytales always being saved by her prince charming. The thing is, those are the only times she feels this chemistry towards Sonic. Anything else though, and there just seems to be a whole lot of disappointment.

"Why do I keep chasing him?" said Amy's voice, although it did not come from Amy's mouth one bit.

"Who's there?" Amy asked, taking her hammar out ready to fight.

"What's so great about Sonic?" "Why can't I just let him go?" "When am I finally going to grow out of this crush?" "Has Sonic really changed?" "What will saving Eggman do to make Sonic change his mind about me?"

Amy realized that these were all her questions about what was going on. She also realized that all her thoughts were about Sonic. Why was it after so many years, her head still could not focus on anything but him? What kind of twisted kingdom was this? Was this place playing mind tricks on her?

"This is really weird...," Amy said, trying to stop herself from going insane from all the voices coming from her head that didn't seem to want to stop. They just kept on going, like one hundred cats trying to get that one ball of yarn. It was just insane. Why was this happening to her? Why can't those voices just stop? Please, please stop. No more, I'll do whatever you want, just please. I can't take no more...

"STOP!" Amy shouted.

The voices had suddenly stopped, and Amy looked up, surprised at how they listened to her. But then she had spotted something amazing infront of her. Which was a pedestal, with light shining on it, along with a Chaos Emerald sitting right on it. It looked so beautiful, and it was hers to take. Now that she found the emerald, she could focus on getting out. Amy quickly runs up to the emerald, and collects the emerald.

"Gotcha!" Amy said happily.

"Not so fast," said a voice that was all too familiar to Amy. Amy quickly turned around, and saw that the figure that said that was none other then the black hedgehog she had escaped from on the fleet.

"Amy, it's good to see you again," Shadow said. He didn't expect Amy to show up here. It was nice to see someone else stuck in this mess. It was too bad though that she was an enemy according to the doctor, so she could not be trusted.

"S-Shadow...," Amy said, in shock that out of all people, he was over here.

"I'd hate to cut our reunion short, but I'm going to have to once I obtain that Chaos Emerald," Shadow said. "If you just give me the emerald, there will be no trouble. I don't want to hurt you." Shadow did mean those words too. He genuienly didn't want to hurt Amy, as there was something about her that made him hesitate to really take out. That's why he saved her back at the Mystic Ruins in the first place.

"So Eggman IS looking for the Chaos Emeralds!" Amy shouted. "If that's the case Shadow, then the answer is no." Amy and Shadow stared at each other then. Both want the emerald, and both knew there was only one way to get them.

**Conclusion**

Will Sonic, Vector, and Charmy get out of the little earthquake scar free, or will they be stuck down there covered in spiky icycles? What is the Warrior Order, and what does this mean now that Silver had revealed he isn't from the present timeline? How will Vanilla and Cream's relationship go from here? What will the messages Shadow and Amy got at Hang Castle do to them in the near future? And which one of them is getting that Chaos Emerald? All this on the next episode of Desperate Hedgehogs!


End file.
